


i don't love you (i always will)

by usuallysunny



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, F/M, I'll say it again - angst, Jealousy, Jon and Sansa are Cousins, Jon and Sansa have a child, Jon is King in the North, R Plus L Equals J, Sansa is Queen in the North, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:55:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 59,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usuallysunny/pseuds/usuallysunny
Summary: Sansa wonders how it all came to this, standing in-front of the furious King in the North, a man she’s inextricably bound to, a man she doesn’t love.She never imagined marriage to be like this.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hola! I'm a sucker for angst and just thought it'd be interesting to have a story where Jon and Sansa actually don't like each other very much to start with, but are bound together. They respect each other, but it's not quite love. It's kind of canon compliant in that the events of S1-6 happened - big difference is they're still distant with each other, like they were when they were children. Jon knows he's a Targaryen, but has been legitimised as a Stark/King through marriage to Sansa.

  
Sansa hovers outside the solar door, lifting her hand to knock, only to drop it again in tortured indecision.

She pauses to stare blankly, counting the cracks in the weathered wood. Thoughts burn and buzz through her mind but she can’t find a way to sort them. She doesn’t know why he’s called her here, why he’s requested her presence.

She doesn’t bother trying to predict what he’ll say, what mood he’ll be in. It’s futile.

Six years of marriage and she barely knows her husband at all.

She might have known him once. Back when they were children, racing around the courtyard, safe behind the comforting walls of Winterfell. But that was a long time ago now, too many lifetimes ago to matter.

There had always been a distance between them, unable as she was to move past the pain his very existence brought her mother… but it had never been like this.

Her third husband might be more honourable than the rest, a man she’s known all her life, but the marriage had been forced upon her all the same. A plan devised by the Lords to consolidate his hold on the North.

He may not have had the Stark name, but she did.

She closes her eyes, telling herself to get a grip. No matter her name, her title, she will always be a Stark, brave and noble and true. She has never been afraid.

She lifts her hand again, preparing to knock.

His voice – a low, rumbling Northern brogue – stops her in her tracks and her hand pauses, suspended mid-air.

“Come in,” he says.

He must have known she was standing there, must’ve sensed her presence all along. Briefly, she wonders how it’s possible he knows _her_ so well. He seems to predict every move she makes before she makes it, her own dark shadow, a disconcerting presence looming over her.

She takes a breath and prepares herself for the storm.

He’s sitting at his desk, elbows on the surface, clasped hands resting against his mouth. His furs are wrapped impeccably around his shoulders and his face gives nothing away. He wears that expressionless mask. The same as always.

_The inimitable, reticent King in the North._

Unlike the Southern Lords or the ice Queen Cersei, the North’s commander governs through respect, not fear. To everyone else, he’s an impressive warrior who’s won every battle he’s ever fought.

 _The best swordsman the North has ever seen,_ she's heard him called. A ruler who is imposing and severe but always fair.

To her, he’s just a man.

Just her husband.

Just Jon.

He stands, his index finger trailing along the wood of his desk as he walks around it to approach her.

He’s disarmingly quiet, in control of the situation as always. He likes to keep her in the dark, under his thumb.

Sansa wants to scream.

“The threat beyond the Wall has intensified,” he cuts straight to the chase, “the dead are marching towards us. We are running out of time, ideas and resources. I am going to Kings Landing to petition Queen Cersei, to ask her to pull back her armies and stand down until the threat is dealt with.”

Sansa blinks, confused as to why he’s telling her this. He never normally includes her in matters of state, never seems interested in speaking to her at all.

“You hate Cersei,” is all she says.

His lips twitch, almost in irritation.

“Perhaps, but we cannot afford to fight her _and_ the threat from beyond the wall. Whether the North remains a free and independent Kingdom will not matter if we are all dead.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The North is under threat. Forgive me for assuming you’d be interested,” his voice is derisive, cold, as he turns away from her.

Sansa’s blood boils, anger bubbling in the pit of her stomach.

“That’s not what I meant,” she bites back. He knows this, knows how much her home means to her. His deliberate misunderstanding is infuriating, “Just – forgive me. Go and do what needs to be done. I will ensure the North is safe in your absence.”

He turns to face her again, hands clasped behind his back.

“You misunderstand. The Lords, both North and South, will expect us to put on a united front.”

She stares at him for a beat before a bitter laugh escapes her.

“What do you mean?”

“You will journey South with me,” he repeats like she’s simple, “we need to show the North’s strength by presenting its King _and_ its Queen.”

Panic grips at Sansa like a vice, fine winding tendrils strangling her heart.

“You know what that place means to me,” she says lowly, “you know what they did to me.”

One eyebrow climbs to his hairline and when he speaks, his voice is cool.

“You cannot hide from your past forever, Sansa.”

Hysteria bubbles in the pit of her stomach and suddenly she can’t breathe.

“Joffrey used me. He beat me. He _humiliated_ me,” she references the beginning of her nightmare, back when she was a child who still dreamt of her golden prince. If the reminder moves him in any way, it doesn’t show. His stare is as icy as ever. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m hiding. You have no idea what it was like. How could you? You were too busy gallivanting beyond the wall, laying with wildlings.”

His jaw clenches, eyes flashing dangerously at the mention of his lost love, Ygritte.

“Don’t push me, Sansa.”

Her eyes narrow; she’s not afraid of him.

“Besides, what happened to _there must always be a Stark in Winterfell_?”

“Bran is here.”

“Bran is a _boy_ ,” her voice is not unkind, but simply matter of fact, “he cannot lead.”

“I am not asking him to,” Jon counters, clearly tiring of this conversation, “we won’t be gone long. I do not mean for him to be King, just to keep the Lords in line.”

“ _I_ could do that,” she insists and her anger rises again at the indifferent expression that remains etched on his face.

She’s grown into a talented politician, a gifted strategist, but all of this is lost to him, her pig-headed cousin turned husband.

He’s not only a man, but a King, and in politics and war and _life,_ he makes the decisions.

His insistence on underestimating her makes her want to scream.

“No,” he says simply.

“So what do you expect me to do instead?” she asks acerbically. 

“You are my wife. I expect you to do as I say.”

His tone is commanding - a low, honeyed brogue that may have given her a thrill once. But that was a long time ago, and she’s felt nothing since.

“So despite everything, despite the distance that’s always been between us, you want me to be a pretty thing to hang off your arm, to journey with you to the place where I lost _everything_ – my father, my innocence – while you decide the fate of my home without me?”

He tips his head to the side, much like she’s seen his precious Ghost do from time to time.

If her scathing tone, her bitter words, hurt him, it doesn’t show.

“Aye, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“And why should I?”

“Because I am your King and I command it.”

Sansa tries unsuccessfully to keep her anger from showing on her face. Her jaw clenches and her breath quickens and she can’t look at him. She’s sick of acting, sick of being trapped in a life she doesn’t want, and she’s sick of him pretending like he feels any different.

“Jon, this is absurd,” she mutters after a beat and she still can’t look at him, “I don’t love you. You don’t love me. This union is—”

She pauses, unsure of how to finish that sentence.

At one time, she had embraced this union. She would have done anything for her family, for the North, and though she and Jon had never been close, he was a good man. She knew he’d never hurt her. Not like the others did. So, as the Lady of Winterfell should, she’d swallowed any foolish notions of marrying for love and embraced her duty.

She’d done it for her father and her father’s memory, lost to a cruel world that had taken her mother and brother too. She’d done it for their name, the name she’s now given to him.

The name she once thought would die with her, but that she now gives to her children.

Despite his dislike for the woman, he’d allowed her to call their first - and thus far, only – baby Catelyn, a daughter with his inky curls but striking eyes of Tully-blue. Sansa loves her, more than she’s ever loved anyone, but she sees so much of her lost family in her every day, sometimes it hurts to look at her. 

“This _union_ keeps you safe,” he bites back finally, eyes lit, “keeps _this family_ safe.”

“You’re not even part of _this family_. Dragon’s blood flows through _your_ veins,” she snaps without meaning to, her voice colder than she’s heard it in years. She feels a sick thrill at the way he falters, the reminder of his true parentage more painful than any blow he’s suffered in battle.

She shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have been so harsh. It isn’t fair. Yet she can’t apologise, the words lodging in her throat.

She can only blink at him, stubborn and sad and angry. 

His eyes darken, his jaw clenching in a tight line. She’s pushed him too far.

“We leave in a moons’ time. Prepare your things.”

His tone is final, cold and cutting like ice.

She doesn’t speak, but glances at the stone floor instead.

“And you’re right, Sansa,” he speaks again, but there’s a devastating glint to his eye and he hurls her name like a weapon, “I _don’t_ love you… yet here we are all the same.” 

He brushes past her, taking the heat with him, and Sansa’s eyes burn with tears she refuses to shed.


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa has _tried_ to love her husband – truly she has.

Sometimes, she thinks she could.

When she cleans his cuts and wounds after battle, when his eyelids flutter shut and he leans into her touch as she washes away the stubborn blood and mud and dirt. It’s hard not to admire him then, when he’s not the moody bastard boy she knew, but the powerful King who would die for his people in a heartbeat.

When they sit in his solar at night, moonlight shining through the window as the flames from the fireplace lick up his face, illuminating the scar under his eye, the evidence of his strength, his unfaltering bravery.

When he looks _peaceful_ , the tension gone from his muscles, that sullen and brooding glint to his eye softened and relaxed.

When he’d pushed open the doors to her birthing chamber, looking wild and more panicked than she’d ever seen him. When he’d held their newborn daughter in his arms, looking unsure and hesitant and more scared than she’s ever seen him in war. When he’d smiled at her and gently kissed her lips, murmuring a quiet _thank you._

He looked at her very differently after she gave him a child.

In these moments, these rare and fragile and infrequent snapshots of an uncertain life together, Sansa thinks she could love her husband.

In these moments, they are _more_ than who they are. More than the bastard King and his pretty, broken Queen.

But something’s got to give, something always breaks, and he always pulls away from her in the end.

He can be stubborn, resentful. His life has never been his own. He never wanted to be a bastard, he never wanted to be King, and he certainly never wanted to be a Targaryen.

What he doesn’t understand, what he’s _never_ understood, is that she doesn’t want this either.

She never wanted to be tied to him, just like he doesn’t want her now. She’s bound by duty as much as he is. They’re pushed down by black, blinded by white, shackled together.

The Northern Lords loved him _-_ the man who won back Winterfell - but he didn’t have the name. The Northern Lords didn’t trust her, the former Lady Bolton, the former Lady Lannister, but she did. It was the only option that made sense.

For the good of the North.

 _If Father could see us now,_ she thinks sadly.

She never lets herself think about what Mother would say.

“Not now, Catelyn,” Jon murmurs, raising his brow to the little girl who tugs at his tunic.

Catelyn persists, every inch as stubborn as her mother, as she pleads with him to play with her. His steel grey eyes are fixed upon the map in-front of him, his calloused hands drifting over foreign lands, the cogs in his head turning.

“Father, please…” Catelyn whines, grabbing onto his leg and trying to climb up into his lap. She huffs in annoyance when she can’t quite get there, falling backwards and crossing her arms over her chest petulantly.

“Your _father_ is busy,” he says, tearing his eyes away from the map to scold her, “run along and play.”

Sansa lifts her head from her book, her brows drawing into a frown.

Catelyn huffs again, the puff of air blowing an inky curl away from her face. She opens her mouth to protest so Sansa interrupts, wanting to save her from another reprimand. She can always tell when Jon’s not in the mood, when he shouldn’t be pushed. 

“Sam,” she turns her head to Jon’s friend and confidante, standing idly by the door, “will you take Catelyn to her room please? Find something for her to play with?”

“But—” Catelyn starts to whine again.

“Listen to your Mother,” Jon orders without lifting his eyes from the map. Catelyn’s little shoulders slump and she stomps to the door, angry and sassy and far too intelligent for her five years of age.

When they’re gone, the door closing behind them with a click, Sansa crosses her arms over her chest, her reading forgotten.

“She is your heir,” she says after a beat, voice low and unimpressed.

Jon doesn’t look up.

“I do not need to be reminded.”

Her anger flares.

“You could have fooled me,” she stands, “you make no effort with her.”

He lifts his head at that, one eyebrow quirked. His expression is cool, blank.

“She has everything she needs, does she not?”

“She needs _you,_ Jon.”

One corner of his mouth twitches at that and his eyes find the map again.

“She knows I love her.”

“Does she?”

“Sansa,” his voice is a growl, gruff and irritated, “I am facing the hardest battle of my life, a war I am not sure I can win. I do not have _time_ to debate with you about whether or not our five-year-old daughter knows I care for her.”

Sansa takes a step forward, resting her hands on his desk. She lets the fingertips of one hand roam the surface, taking in the upside-down lands and strategic markings and battle pieces.

“I’ve been thinking we should have another.”

“What?”

“Another child.”

 _This_ catches his attention and he lifts his eyes to her.

“You want another baby?” He asks, voice low and disbelieving.

She shrugs easily. “I adore Catelyn, you know that. And I wish it didn’t matter that she’s a girl. But the harsh fact is… the North will be strongest with a male heir.”

He stares at her, brow slightly quirked, and she can practically see the cogs in his head turning.

“And you think _now_ is the right time?” he scoffs, unimpressed, “with foreign Queens and suspicious Lords and the walking dead at our door?”

“Now is the _perfect_ time,” she counters, “now, more than ever, we must show that the future of the North is bright. Strong. I want to play my part in that. I want to give you a trueborn son.”

She watches something flicker over his face at that, watches his expression change. Jon’s a passionate man, even possessive at times. A son, another happy and strong child with his hair and her eyes… he likes the sound of it, she can tell. 

“We haven’t lain together in months,” he says finally, bluntly.

“I’m sure we haven’t forgotten how to do it,” she says dryly, matching his directness, “besides, that was never the hard part.”

He turns his head away, a light, husky chuckle falling from his lips. Her expression remains the same but her brow quirks, eyes flickering over his handsome face.

She’s telling the truth.

In-fact, it’s hard for her to look at him, the thick curl to his dark hair, the hard line to his jaw, the feminine pout to his full lips, and _not_ want.

Her husband is a pretty man and a _King_ beyond that. She’s seen the lustful looks the ladies throw at him from where they sit beside their Lord husbands, heard their giggles. She knows they think her a lucky woman indeed.

 _Fucking_ him has never been a chore.

It’s the ensuing closeness, the intimacy, that they’ve always struggled with.

“Very well,” he says, like they’re discussing a simple business transaction, “I will visit your chambers more often.”

“Tonight?”

He falters slightly, a flash of surprise on his features.

“As you wish,” his voice is back to that even, emotionless tone.

 _It’s not about what I wish,_ she thinks.

She _wishes_ for a simple husband, a quiet, Northern man with a humble occupation who she can grow fat and old with. A man whose hands have never been painted with someone else’s blood, whose eyes haven’t looked upon death… a man whose body hasn’t quite literally been brought back from it.

She wishes for a man less magnificent than him, less important.

She wishes for a normal life, a marriage where they don’t constantly hurt each other, cut into each other’s skin with their icy words.

But wishes are for fools, for little girls. Not for Queens who’ve been hardened by the world, who have been broken and bruised and fought to put themselves back together again.

She will do her duty - as she always has - for the North.

Sansa won’t be caught crying over a life she never had.


	3. Chapter 3

As promised, he comes to her at night, when Winterfell is asleep.

It’s a simple knock on her door, two confident and steady raps, and she knows it’s him. She’s always been able to tell by his knock.

She stands in-front of the full-length mirror, her head tipped to the side.

She turns her body, running her hands over her flat stomach, imagining it swollen and round again.

It’s not an unwelcome thought. She may not love her husband - not in the all-consuming, passionate way a wife should - but she loves his daughter. She’d love his son.

“Come in,” she calls and fights back her wince. _Come in._ It’s how that conversation a few nights ago had started, the one that had ended in insults and broken declarations of distaste.

_I don’t love you. You don’t love me._

She never imagined her life to go like this.

The door opens with a click and _there he is,_ leaning against the frame, standing in her bedchambers like he never left.

He closes the door behind him, walking over to her in a few strong strides.

It’s silent for a moment, the flickering candles bathing her in soft light, and his hands kind of twitch to reach out for her before he pulls them back.

After-all, he’s still Jon and she’s still Sansa and they’re not sure what they are to each other. They don’t quite fit.

Her blue eyes flicker over his frame, noting the slight tense to his shoulders.

In here, he’s not so much a King, but a man. He looks like he did that first night so many years ago, the night they married in the Godswood, sheltered by the heavy branches of the weirwood tree.

He’d been nervous, she could tell. There’d been a tremble to his hands, a clench to his jaw. He’d vehemently refused a bedding ceremony, thunderously reproaching the Lords who’d objected, but Sansa felt eyes on her all the same.

“ _I know this is not what you want_ ,” he’d said evenly. _Not what_ we _want,_ she’d wanted to correct him. _“But you’re safe with me. I will never hurt you.”_

Her mind had flooded the moment he pushed inside her.

He’d moved reflexively, dutifully, letting out even pants of breath against her neck. She’d spread her legs and tried to find pleasure in the dull hammering of his cock, but when she closed her eyes, it was Ramsay she saw. His violent face seared behind her vision, ruining it, ruining _her._ She’d closed her eyes tighter and Ramsay morphed into Joffrey who morphed into Petyr and she couldn’t think.

She couldn’t _breathe_.

She’d lifted herself out of her body, head turned to the side, hands clutching at his nightshirt dispassionately as the bed creaked and moaned and shifted beneath them. He’d noticed of course, whispering that it was okay, that he was Jon, that he wouldn’t hurt her.

Other than that, he’d been quiet, jaw clenched so tight she worried he’d break his teeth, right until the end. He’d trembled as he spilled inside her, a strangled groan falling from his lips, and as he clenched his hands in her hair, she wondered whether he saw a different shade of red.

She’d winced at the emptiness when he pulled out of her, throbbing and burning and wet between her thighs. He’d sat up, breathing still heavy, and ran a tired hand over his face.

He’d done his duty, successfully consummated their marriage, and when he asked if he should leave, she didn’t tell him to stay.

He’d never kissed her.

She never asked him to.

She wonders if he’ll kiss her now.

After their wedding night, he refused to touch her again until she asked. He waited for her to come to him, patient and sympathetic to the trauma of her past. It took a few moons, nights of tossing and turning alone, of hovering outside his door, wanting to knock but too afraid. Something held her back, something paralysing. 

Eventually, she let herself believe he wasn't Ramsay. He wasn't Tyrion or Joffrey or Petyr. He might have been rougher around the edges, hardened by pain and war and haunted by the ghosts of all the people he'd loved and lost, but he was still Jon. He'd keep her safe. 

His hands, sure and steady and strong, worked to unravel everything Ramsay had done - and over the years, their coupling became easier.

After-all, he’s still a man, young and hot blooded, and she’s still a woman, a Stark with wolf’s blood running through her veins.

They fuck like they fight – angry, passionate, wild. 

He likes to chase her pleasure as well as his own. He’ll always ask if she needs readying, slipping his fingers or his mouth between her thighs.

It’s been enough to stop them from seeking another to warm their beds. Though Sansa suspects much of that is due to his sense of honour, rather than anything else.

Divorce or separation or infidelity would never be an option for the King in the North.

“Shall we begin?” she asks, hands reaching for him.

He doesn’t reply. He just stands still, expressionless. He watches her face, unbearably intense, as she pushes the furs off his shoulders, letting them fall to the ground. She continues undressing him, silent and sure, and he continues to just watch her.

His hair is pulled back into a neat bun, displaying the long-healed scar that runs down the side of his face. She glances at it for a moment before reaching for his sword, slowly unsheathing it and laying it on the desk beside them. She removes the rest of his armour, his jerkin and doublet, and then he’s standing there, in just his breeches and undershirt.

“Sansa,” he murmurs her name, hands anchoring themselves on her waist.

She meets his gaze and knows that look.

She tilts her chin, gaze flickering to his mouth, softly nodding her consent.

He leans in, arms curling around her waist as he pulls her flush against his body. The first contact is just a brush of lips, the charged connection almost making her draw back in fright. She swallows, her hands coming up to his face, feeling his stubble rough under her fingers. He kisses her again, properly this time, his mouth slanting over hers.

He swallows her gasp of surprise, tongue sweeping over her bottom lip and demanding entrance. She opens for him, blossoming under his touch, tongues fighting for dominance, fighting to control something that’s never been theirs to control.

When they break away, his eyes are black, blazing with desire and burning out of control.

“The bed, then?” he asks, voice slightly rougher and one eyebrow raised.

She shakes her head slowly, hands going to the hem of his shirt. He lifts his arms to help her get it over his head and her hands rest on his sculpted chest.

She drinks him in, lean muscles rippling under skin too sun-kissed for winter. Her fingers trace over the scars littering his chest, some old, some new, and she feels like kissing each one.

Her husband is a beautiful man, she’ll admit.

He watches her again, eyes anchored on her face, as she unlaces his breeches. He slips her nightgown off her shoulders and then she’s naked. She’s naked in-front of her husband and she’s not shivering, not shying away.

He’s naked too, his arousal evident and straining towards her, and she’d be lying if she said it doesn’t give her a thrill. To have that effect on a man such as him… it makes her feel dizzy, powerful.

They don’t speak – they never do – as she leads him towards the bed. There’s a curious expression on his face, a slight quirk to his brow, as she makes him sit down on the furs and swings her legs over, settling in his lap.

She doesn’t break eye contact as she reaches between them, shifting her body up to place him at her soaked entrance. His eyes darken, pupils blown to black, as she holds her breath and slowly sinks down onto him.

She lets out a shaky breath, a moan caught in her throat. His hands find purchase on her waist, fingers digging into the skin, as he sets the pace, guiding her up and down his cock.

She grinds her hips in small circles, arms reaching around his neck to hold on tight.

They fall into an easy rhythm, her eyelids fluttering. White hot pleasure sparks from her fingertips to her toes and her breath quickens, pleasure coiling in the pit of her stomach. When his talented fingers come to rub at the sensitive bundle of nerves between her thighs, she’s pushed over the edge. Stars burst behind her eyelids as he kisses her, swallowing her desperate whimper.

He’s not far behind and she feels him pulsing, hot and hard, as he spills inside her with a growl.

She digs her fingernails into his chest when she comes, revelling in his hiss as she leaves her mark, etched into his skin.

 _I don’t love you, but you’re mine._

“I’ll miss you,” Sansa whispers to Bran, the morning they leave for Kings Landing.

Bran stares at her in his characteristically stoic way, but he smiles when Catelyn shifts in his lap and wraps her arms around his neck. Other than sitting on Jon’s lap while he rides across the woods on his horse, there’s nothing Catelyn loves more than racing around in Bran’s chair.

“I’ll miss you too, sister,” Bran says, “but I will keep the North safe in your absence.”

“Thank you, Bran,” Jon answers for her, suddenly appearing by her side. He reaches down, scooping his daughter up in his arms. Catelyn smiles, snuggling into his leather-clad chest. She grips onto his furs, legs twined around his waist and arms around his neck, clinging to him like an animal.

“She’s tired,” Sansa says, softly tucking a strand of her raven hair – her father’s hair – behind her neck.

“Good,” Jon says, “hopefully she’ll sleep through the journey.”

They’d toyed with the idea of leaving her here, safe under the watchful eyes of Sam and Gilly, but Jon was reluctant to let her out of his sight. He can be proud and unthinking sometimes, often faraway and lost to his duties as King, but her wellbeing is his main priority. She's always safest when with him.

Sansa starts slightly when he reaches for the small of her back, leading her to the horses. Briefly, she wonders what they must look like to outsiders looking in.

The strong King, his beautiful wife and their perfect daughter.

If only it were that simple.

The gates open – and Sansa prepares to leave the only home she’s ever known behind.

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely messages about the first two chapters - just want to clear something up. I don't intend for Jon to come across as "abusive" or a "POS" at all. He's complex, proud and struggling with the responsibilities that come with this title he never wanted. Sansa has trauma in her past too. They've been thrust into this marriage against their wills and are trying their best. Obviously at the moment, they're blaming each other for the wrong things and not dealing right. Jon wants to keep her safe, but it might come across as pigheaded right now. I'm channelling this from the show, where post Season 6 it was clear Sansa had grown into a talented strategist but Jon couldn't shake off those patriarchal, stubborn tendencies to overrule her. Anyway rant over, hope you guys stick with me as Jon learns to trust his wife and their relationship begins to grow...


	4. Chapter 4

Kings Landing is hot and dusty, the unforgiving sun beating down, and Sansa yearns for the bitter cold of the North.

Jon hardly says two words to her on the journey, choosing instead to retreat inside his own head. Sansa notices they carry a wooden crate with them, highly secured with heavy chains and padlocks. More than once, she swears she sees it move.

“Ghost,” he answers easily before she asks. She just quirks a suspicious brow in reply.

Ghost has never needed to be chained up.

She puts it to the back of her mind, too busy dreading her return to the capital.

When they arrive, Cersei is as unwelcoming as she expected, staring down at her with shorter hair but eyes just as cold as she remembers. She had never known Ser Jaime well, so his presence doesn’t particularly bother her, and seeing Brienne again is a welcome surprise.

Lords from all Seven Kingdoms are all gathered here, some familiar, some foreign, and Sansa’s head spins with the complexity of it all. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to go home.

They’re sitting in silence, gathered outside, waiting for the Dragon Queen to arrive. Sansa hears she has three of the beasts at her disposal and an army of thousands. The Lords – and Jon – will want to get her on side, will need her support.

She sits by her husband’s side, Catelyn fussing in her lap, and watches him absentmindedly stroke his beard. His brows are furrowed, that sullen expression etched on his face. If he’s bothered by the strange, forlorn glances Lord Tyrion, her second husband, throws her from across the way, he doesn’t show it.

She does, however, catch his gaze occasionally straying towards someone else from her past. He doesn’t give much away, but she knows that glint to his eye, that slight tick near his left ear as he clenches the strong line of his jaw.

_Harry Hardying._

Even after all these years, with his sandy hair, deep blue eyes and dimples, his appearance takes Sansa’s breath away. There was a time when she wanted to give him everything, back when they were children, when he visited from the Vale.

Her father always said that any wife of Harry’s would be the envy of every highborn maiden in the Vale, as well as many from the Riverlands and the Reach.

Sansa didn’t care about that, about those other girls.

As far as she was concerned, he was the gallant, handsome prince she’d always dreamed of.

But he hadn’t been good enough for her, not compared to the prosperous match that was Prince Joffrey of House Baratheon. 

She’d wanted Harry and he’d wanted her too. They all knew it, even Jon. He’d grown up with them. Through brooding, unemotional eyes, he’d seen the longing looks they shared, the way her eyes lit up when he laughed, the way their hands would linger too long.

He hadn’t cared much back then, the distance between them so vast it couldn’t even be called dislike. Simply indifference.

After-all, there was no way either of them could have predicted what would happen next, that they’d end up shackled together like this, that she’d have to swap the Young Falcon for the White Wolf.

Now, from across the way, sheltered under a coloured canopy, Sansa tries not to look at Harry. No good can come of it. Not when all these years have passed and nothing will ever change and her husband, a _King_ , sits stoically by her side.

Catelyn shifts in her lap again and Euron Greyjoy leans across, elbows resting on his thighs as he points at them.

“Does the little one always fuss this much?” he asks in his heavy accent, a smirk pulling at his lips.

Sansa grimaces, squinting against the sun, as her daughter continues to fidget.

“She’s unused to the heat, that’s all,” she says, urging her to sit still.

“Is the shade I’ve provided not adequate for the young wolf?” Cersei asks, voice dripping with barely disguised sarcasm.

The moniker – the mark of her brother – causes a tightening in Sansa’s chest. She thinks of Robb then, thinks of where she was, in the very grounds of this cursed place, when she found out about his death. She remembers how she wouldn’t sleep for days, just staring at the canopy, thinking about how they died.

Cersei knows what she’s doing.

_Gods,_ she hates her.

“It’s fine,” Sansa replies, “thank you.”

“To think…” Cersei’s speaking again, voice light and fake, “at one point, we all imagined you with little Southron children. Golden-haired princes and princesses to run around these very gardens. Lions… not wolves.”

This catches Jon’s attention and he turns his head to look at her.

“Those days are long past,” he says evenly, feeling Sansa tense at his side.

“Well,” Cersei’s lips pull into a tight lipped, sinister smile, “she’s a beautiful child, nonetheless. Gold or black, at least her hair’s not silver.”

Jon tenses this time. Where they lay on his thighs, Sansa watches his hands curl into fists. The reminder of his heritage, of the dragon’s blood that runs through his veins, is always painful to him and she can tell he’s fighting back his temper.

She thinks about covering his hand with hers, about entwining their fingers and holding them close. Her hand even twitches, fingers extending towards him, before she pulls them back. It won’t comfort him; it’s not what he wants, what he needs.

Suddenly, she hears a dragon’s tremendous cry.

It shakes the ground, tremors rumbling beneath their feet. Catelyn jumps in her arms, snuggling close, and Sansa strokes her hair, telling her not to be afraid.

As the Dragon Queen appears in the distance, flanked by her two other ‘children’, Sansa looks to Jon. He quirks a brow, matching her curious expression. He gives nothing away, turning his gaze back to the horizon. 

Queen Daenerys lands with a flourish, far more graceful than Sansa ever imagined. The dragon gives an almighty howl, baring its terrifying teeth, and Catelyn jumps out of her skin, launching herself on the ground.

Sansa curses under her breath, scrambling to pick her up. Half the Lords’ gazes flit to the youngest Stark, while the others stare frozen at the mythical beasts in-front of them.

Jon’s quicker than she is.

He jolts down, scooping Catelyn up with one strong arm. He hauls her onto his lap, holding her close, as she buries her face in his furs. Sansa can’t hear what he’s saying, but she can see his lips moving, speaking to their child in hushed murmurs, and she watches Catelyn’s body slowly relax.

Sometimes she envies that, the calm air he carries with him. He infuriates her, pushes all her buttons, but she can see why the Lords chose him as their King. He’s cool under pressure, always in control. Sometimes, she’s sick with jealousy. Whether a petulant princess or a woman held down by her past, she’s always burned too hot, too bright. 

Daenerys dismounts, climbing down the dragon’s crimson scales. With a pat and a flourish of its magnificent wings, it flies up into the air, its brothers hot on its tail.

Once they’re out of sight, everyone’s attention can return to the Queen.

As she walks forward, Sansa feels her breath catch.

Absentmindedly, she thinks the rumours surrounding her beauty don’t do her justice. She’s probably the most stunning woman Sansa’s ever seen, with her ice-blonde hair hanging half in intricate braids and half in loose curls around her slim shoulders. 

Her presence is palpable, charging the air around her, and Sansa thinks she could hear a pin drop.

Finally, the Dragon Queen takes her place beside the others.

“We’ve been waiting for quite some time,” Cersei says finally, voice lined with distaste.

“My apologies,” Daenerys drawls, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

Cersei struggles not to roll her eyes.

“Well, this has gone on long enough. Let’s cut to it, shall we?”

It’s silent for a beat, the air stretching heavy and tense between them, before Cersei quirks a brow and speaks again.

“Lord Snow?” she says pointedly, as though he’s simple, and Sansa watches her husband’s jaw tick at the blatant disregard for his legitimate name and title. “This so-called _threat_ from beyond the Wall… your Kingdom is nearest to it, is it not?”

“Aye, it is,” he replies smoothly.

“So… have at it.” Cersei waves a hand, gesturing for him to take the floor, “tell us.”

Jon blinks, quiet for a beat, before he stands. He lifts Catelyn with him, unfurling her clinging limbs from his waist and placing her in Sansa’s arms. Catelyn reaches her arms out for him again but he shakes his head, silently communicating with her to stay with her mother.

“I do not need to tell you,” he cuts to the chase, all eyes on him, “you will not listen. Instead, I will _show_ you what we are all facing. I will show you what will be left of us if we do not put these rivalries aside and work together.”

Sansa’s brows pull together into a confused frown before she forces her face to relax.

The Queen in the North must be seen supporting her King – even if he has left her in the dark as much as everyone else.

“Lady Brienne,” he turns to the tall woman, the woman who had once guarded Sansa but who now spends her days in the sunnier lands of the South, “will you please take Lady Catelyn to the Castle? I don’t want her seeing what comes next. If that’s alright with you, of course?” he turns to Cersei.

The Queen quirks a brow but waves a dismissive hand in acceptance. As Brienne comes closer, comes to take her child away, Sansa wants to protest, but she recognises that hard glint to Jon’s eye. She can’t be seen questioning him, not at a time like this. Besides… she trusts Brienne, she _knows_ Brienne, and despite her better judgement, she also trusts that Jon will be shielding their child for good reason.

So, she kisses Catelyn’s forehead, tells her to be good, and gives her to Brienne.

Once they’re out of sight, headed for the Great Keep, Jon resumes his speech.

“Let me show you,” he repeats, gesturing for Ser Davos, one of the North’s most trusted advisors and Jon’s good friend, to join him at the Dragonpit. They disappear for a moment, before Ser Davos emerges with the crate they had brought with them on the journey on his back. He walks to the middle of the space between the summit factions and sets it down on the dusty ground.

Jon gives him a short nod, throwing the ropes aside and unlocking the padlocks. He opens the top and steps back.

For a moment, nothing happens.

Sansa joins the others in leaving forward, craning their necks to try and see what’s inside.

Nothing.

Until Jon kicks the crate, tipping it over.

The undead bolts out of its casket, teeth snarling and gnashing, and gives an almighty cry.


	5. Chapter 5

“How could you keep that from me?” Sansa practically snarls. He walks in first and she slams the door behind her, so hard she’s surprised it doesn’t rattle in its frame. 

Jon raises a brow, one hand resting on Longclaw on his hip while the other runs tiredly over his face.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he says quietly, like it’s obvious.

Sansa gapes at him, wide eyed and stunned.

“ _Worry_?” she repeats, “you brought that _thing_ with us. You had it travelling with us, with our _daughter!_ What if it had gotten out? What if it had hurt her?”

His expression hardens then, a slight clench to his jaw.

“It wouldn’t have,” he insists, “I wouldn’t have let it.”

“You’re not one of the gods, Jon,” Sansa tries unsuccessfully not to roll her eyes, “you can’t prevent _everything_ , can’t predict it. You put her in danger.”

His eyes narrow, flashing dark and dangerous.

“I would _never_ put our child in danger. Everything I do is for her. For the North. After all these years… surely you know that by now.”

His words don’t quell the angry fire flaring to life inside her. Briefly, she’s grateful they’ve been given a solar away from everyone else to use; the King and Queen in the North’s diplomatic position would not fare well if the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms heard them arguing like this.

“I _understand_ why you did it,” Sansa concedes on a frustrated sigh, crossing her arms over her chest, “Cersei and her men would never have stood down without that demonstration, without seeing that… _thing._ ”

She remembers it then, that monstrous thing. She’s never seen one up close, has only heard Jon’s stories from battle, and seeing it with her own eyes - its rotting flesh, it’s horrific, skeletal frame – rattles her more than she’d like to admit.

 _“The Crown accepts your truce,”_ Cersei had said, clearly shaken to the core, “ _until the dead are defeated, they are the true enemy. In return, the King and Queen in the North will extend this truce. They will remain in the North where they belong. They will not take up arms against the Lannisters. They will not choose sides.”_

It worked.

The capital’s war against the North has temporarily cooled off, but it doesn’t feel like a victory.

“But what I _don’t_ understand…” Sansa continues, “is why you couldn’t tell me what you were doing. You drag me here to show a _united front,_ yet you keep me in the dark about your plans?”

She watches his shoulders rise and fall as he takes a breath, clearly growing impatient.

“I told you. You would’ve been scared, you would’ve been worried about Catelyn.”

“You’re lying,” she murmurs, shaking her head, “you didn’t tell me because you didn’t care what I thought about it. You don’t respect me. You don’t respect my opinion. You never ask for it. I’m your wife, but not your equal.”

Jon stares at her, dark eyes slightly narrowed.

“Sansa,” he says her name like he’s done with this conversation, “I know what I’m doing. Will you just - trust me? Please?”

She stares right back at him, heart beating too fast and chest too tight.

“I have _always_ trusted you…” she whispers heavily. Despite _everything_ , despite the distance between them, he’s probably the _only_ person she’s ever trusted, wholly and unequivocally. She kicks herself when she feels her breath catch, her eyes and throat burning with hot tears, “I’m just waiting for you to return the favour.”

His expression falters slightly, a small crack in that tough, emotionless exterior, but he doesn’t speak. 

Sansa brushes past him, uncaring.

She doesn’t want to hear his reply anyway.

Cersei holds a banquet in the evening, an uneasy, transparent ploy to solidify their newfound peace treaty.

Until the threat beyond the wall is defeated, the North is safe.

_On the condition that the King and Queen remain neutral._

The problem is, Sansa soon realises, the threat beyond the wall will not be defeated without the help of one particular Queen and her resources.

They want Queen Daenerys’ dragon glass, the only weapon forged other than fire that can defeat the wights, and Queen Daenerys wants the North.

She wants the Seven Kingdoms and she wants them all.

As the Lords recoiled, terrified at the thing that crawled out of that crate, Daenerys had remained still. Unaffected. The monstrous and the mystical clearly weren’t new to the Dragon Queen.

One by one, they offer their strategies on how to defeat them. Jaime Lannister suggests an army of hundreds of thousands, all seven kingdoms providing their best men. Harry Hardying and the Vale suggest a counterattack, sneaking up on the dead when they’re least expecting it. Euron Greyjoy doesn’t stick around long enough to suggest anything, promptly fleeing back to the Iron Islands when he learns the monsters can’t swim.

He suggests Daenerys do the same, that they could rebuild the new world together once the rest of them are inevitably dead.

Yet here she is, still sitting quietly, while Westeros panics.

Sansa watches her from across the stone table, scrutinizing her like she’s a puzzle to be solved. She can’t help but notice her husband watches too, though his expression is infuriatingly difficult to read.

Sansa wishes she could look through his eyes, wonders what he’s seeing. 

Lost kin, a Queen, an enemy, simply a beautiful woman… she can’t tell.

She just looks at the wolf emblazoned on her cloak and back to Daenerys – and wonders if her husband’s dragon’s blood is stirring.

“Quite the show you put on today, Lord Snow.”

Daenerys says when they’re gathered in one of the solars Cersei’s given them to use. It’s small, far smaller than the lavish rooms usually given to guests – Sansa knows this castle inside and out – but Jon’s never cared for fancy flourishes and Sansa’s outgrown them.

“Apologies, your Grace, but I most protest,” Ser Davos interrupts, his fleabottom accent harsher than usual, “Jon is _King_ in the North, legitimised as a Stark through marriage to his wife. He’s not a Lord.”

From where she sits, Sansa raises her hand in silent warning.

“It’s alright, Ser Davos,” she says quietly, recognising the look of irritation that briefly sweeps across the other Queen’s features.

“Forgive me,” Daenerys drawls insincerely, “my education must have failed me. I was under the impression that the last King in the North was _Torrhen_ Stark, who bent the knee to my ancestor Aegon Targaryen. Perhaps, as his namesake, you have decided to reverse this. Is that the case, dear nephew?”

Sansa’s eyes widen slightly, stunned at the Queen’s audacity. She reads the barely restrained anger on Jon’s face, can see the tense in his shoulders, the tick to his jaw.

“My name is Jon Stark,” he says clearly and Sansa feels warm, “I was raised as a Stark, _made_ a Stark by my wife. I am of the North, chosen by my Northmen to lead them. I am not a Targaryen.”

Daenerys’ lips twitch but it’s not quite a smile.

“Protest all you want, my Lord. Blood does not lie. Especially not dragon's blood. I’ve waited a long time to meet you. I spent so many years thinking I was alone in the world. And when I heard about you… the lost Targaryen, the _last_ Targaryen… _gods_ , I thought it couldn’t be true. Yet here you are.”

Sansa feels an emotion she refuses to recognise as jealousy, as possession, kick at her stomach.

 _Mine,_ the wolf inside her seems to growl.

“He’s _not_ a Targaryen,” she blurts out again, voice harsher than she’s heard it in years. Jon must notice too, must hear the hard note to her usually melodic, soft voice, because his gaze snaps to hers and his eyes widen slightly.

Daenerys’ cool blue eyes flit to her and she arches a perfect brow.

“You seem distressed, my Lady,” she quips, refusing to use her title either, “and here I was led to believe your marriage was simply one of convenience.”

Jon’s eyes narrow and he speaks before she can, his voice somehow smooth and rough at the same time.

“Let me be clear,” he takes a step towards her, “my Queen is my wife and my wife is my Queen. Our allegiance is to the North… and to each other.”

The Dragon Queen’s lips twitch into a sardonic smile.

“How sweet,” she says, voice patronising, “I lost my husband years ago. Marriage can be so… fleeting. Who knows what dark fates lie around the corner?”

“Is that a threat?” Sansa asks, voice hard.

Jon takes a step toward her, his hand making contact with the crook of her elbow. Her gaze darts to his face and she sees him looking down at her, expression soft but cautionary.

“Of course not,” Daenerys’ reply is smooth, unaffected, “if we have any hope of defeating what your husband showed us today, we must be allies, must we not?”

“Yes, we must,” Jon answers this time, “the truce Cersei has agreed to… can I trust that extends to you also?”

Daenerys tips her chin slightly. Her expression is unreadable, but there’s a devastating glint to her eye.

Time seems to stand still for a moment, stretching out awkwardly between them.

“Of course,” she says finally, voice too light, too casual, “my dragons are your dragons, my weapons your weapons. We are family, after-all.”

Sansa’s insides scream and shout.

Daenerys doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know the name of his sword or his favourite ale or how he got that scar above his right eye. She doesn’t know the fierce way he loved her father or the songs he sings Catelyn to get her to sleep or the taste of his mouth.

The little things that make him _him…_ these things have become home to her.

Daenerys doesn’t know. Can’t know.

Anxious and afraid, Sansa turns her head and her eyes connect with his.

Tully blue on Stark grey.

(How could anyone call him anything other than a wolf?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for my own reference - would you all be interested in a chapter from Jon's POV, to see his motivations etc? lemme know!


	6. Chapter 6

They decide to stay for a few days, finalising the finer details of the peace treaty.

Sansa wanders the gardens, bored out of her mind, plagued by lost memories. Despite the heat, an uncomfortable chill crawls over her skin. She feels the ghosts of all who’ve died here, the people who made Kings Landing their home and got nothing in return. Nothing but pain, betrayal and death.

If she squints, she’s sure she can see sweet Tommen falling from the window of the Red Keep, the wildfire where Margaery met her end still burning emerald and angry on the horizon.

She’s just turning a corner when a familiar voice stops her in her tracks.

“Lady Sansa Stark,”

She turns around, eyes wide.

_Harry Hardying._

There he is, standing before her, looking like she remembers but more handsome up close.

“It’s Queen now,” she says lamely in reply, unsure of how to react.

A small smile tugs at his lips.

“I feel as though I should bend the knee,” he laughs easily, running a hand over the back of his neck.

She smiles tensely, tight lipped.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“No I suppose not,” he says, before pausing for a moment to let his eyes drift over her form. She tries not to shrink, her skin burning, “you are just as I remember, Sansa.”

Sansa feels her cheeks burst into heat.

“I doubt that, my Lord. It’s been many years.”

He nods, a bright smile lighting up his face. He takes a step forward, extending his arm, and she falters for a moment before taking it. As they start to walk, she speaks again.

“How are you finding Kings Landing?” she asks politely. 

He shrugs easily and she tries not to look at him.

“Boring and tedious,” he dismisses, ”but much better now I’ve found you.”

Sansa glances at him and quirks a brow, surprised by his blatant flirtation. He stares straight back, free and at ease. She notices that his cheek dimples more on the left than the right when he smiles and that there are flecks of amber in his cobalt eyes. She thinks of her husband then, how very different he is, with his dark colouring and brooding, sullen expressions.

She thinks about herself, how she’s not the spoilt, pampered girl Harry knew. Not anymore. Not after what they’ve done to her.

“You are too kind.”

“No, I am a liar,” he says, pausing suddenly. She stops and glances at him, curious, before he turns them and places his hands on her shoulders. His eyes dart over her face. “I said you were unchanged, but I think perhaps you are even more beautiful.”

Sansa swallows, suddenly nervous.

“What of you? No wife back in the Vale?” she asks, trying to change the subject. Still grasping his arm, they continue to walk.

“No, I remain unmarried,” he replies, “just haven’t met that special someone yet, I suppose. No-one who can live up to old memories.”

He looks at her again, expression more serious. The atmosphere hangs tense between them, heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid.

“I see.”

“I should like to see you while we’re both here,” he says boldly, pushing the subject.

Sansa pauses, uneasy.

“I don’t think that will be possible.”

“Why?”

An incredulous breath of air leaves her lips. “You know why.”

“Yes,” he murmurs, suddenly glancing to a spot behind her right shoulder, “I believe I do.”

Confused, Sansa slowly turns around. She follows his eye-line, staring off into the distance, until she finds Jon leaning against a stone pillar, arms crossed over his chest and legs crossed at the ankles. His brow is quirked and he wears that stone expression, giving nothing away.

The atmosphere blisters awkwardly and Sansa suddenly feels very small.

Jon makes his way over to them, movements smooth and sure.

To his credit, Harry doesn’t shrink. He merely tips his head, giving a small but respectful bow.

“King Stark.”

Jon looks at them for a moment, dark gaze travelling between them, before his lips pull into a smile and he pats a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“It is good to see you, old friend,” he says in that low, rumbling brogue, “it’s been too long.”

Harry smiles back, clearly relieved, the tension disappearing from his shoulders.

“It has. I was just saying to Sansa I should like to catch up while we are all here, reminisce about old times. The days I spent at Winterfell were some of the best of my childhood.”

Jon’s eyes seem to narrow slightly at the way he casually says her name, the overly familiar omission of her title. His breezy expression is back so quickly Sansa might have missed it, had she been anyone else. 

She knows better, can see through the cracks to the fire beneath.

“Wonderful idea,” he says, sounding like it’s anything but, “but first, there is much to discuss. I must steal away my wife.”

Harry gives a curt nod as Jon extends his hand. Stepping away from Harry’s arm, she takes Jon’s hand, very much aware of the symbolism, and feels him place an arm around her waist.

As they walk towards the castle, Sansa sees straight through him.

He feigns indifference, always insistent that he’s not jealous, not possessive.

But his hand tightens around her waist and she notices that he called her _wife_ , not Sansa.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Jon murmurs that evening when they’re sitting by the fire, Catelyn asleep in her lap.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Sansa replies, gently rocking the child, watching him from where she sits on the other side.

He leans forward slightly, elbows on his thighs, running a hand over his face. He suddenly looks very worn, drained and older than his years.

“Yesterday. About me not trusting you, not respecting your opinion.”

Sansa averts her gaze, capturing her bottom lip between her teeth. She doesn’t want to talk about these things, so painful and fragile. She’s surprised he does.

“Let’s not speak about that.”

“Sansa,” he says her name in that low, Northern brogue and Sansa’s breathless. She’d never admit it, but she loves how he says her name – his honeyed accent, the way it rolls off his tongue.

He looks at her until she breaks. _Fine,_ she thinks. If he wants to open these floodgates, she’ll bite.

“Alright,” she concedes quietly, holding Catelyn tighter, “I know there’s always been a distance between us. Even when we were children, I just never understood you… and you always loved Arya better. But despite everything, Jon… I have been a good and loyal wife to you all these years.”

“I know,” he looks at her again, face half illuminated by the warm, flickering flames, and Sansa thinks he looks beautiful and calm and very, very tired. “I _do_ trust you, Sansa. I _value_ you. Without you and Catelyn, I—”

He stops, turning his gaze back to the fire, the words lodging in his throat.

“Say it,” she pushes, needing to hear it.

He catches her gaze and his eyes are dark, intense.

“I just get so—” he pauses again, a small shake to his head, “with everything you’ve been through… _we’ve_ been through… everything we’ve lost… I want to keep you safe. I _need_ to keep you safe. I know I can be cruel… dismissive. It’s not my intention. I never, _ever_ want to see you hurt.”

His voice is fierce, honeyed accent rougher than usual, and Sansa feels her heart clench.

“I know the pressure you’re under, Jon,” she says quietly, “it would be enough to break another man. I could help lessen the burden… if you would only allow me to.”

He lifts his eyes to hers again and his gaze flickers from her face to their sleeping daughter in her arms.

“I can try,” he murmurs eventually, “I’ll try.”

Sansa’s lips twitch. It’s not everything, but it’s enough for now.

There’s something there, a connection, a burning under the skin. Shared histories of grief, two lives inextricably bound together.

They do respect each other – wholly and deeply.

 _Many marriages are built upon less,_ she reminds herself. 

People come and go, yet he remains.

Her constant.

Her one true thing while all else waivers and changes and rots.

She cherishes these moments - rare and beautiful and fragile - moments where something stirs, something blossoms, between them.

By sunrise, the moment will be just that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is pretty much just smut and I'm not sorry about it

She’s never told him what Ramsay did to her – and he’d never ask.

She knows he sees her scars. He sees the way she yanks down the cuffs of her dresses, the way she undresses quickly in the dark. He feels the way she tenses when he approaches too quickly, like a startled deer, an injured dove.

She remembers the first time he saw her biggest scar, the one on her back, running diagonally from her left shoulder blade down to her right hip. She remembers the agony of the blade slashing into her skin, cut, disfigured and burning with pain. She remembers not knowing if it was going to end – or just get worse until she died. For one sick, solitary moment, she’d wanted to.

Jon’s expression when he saw the long healed wound was nearly as terrifying. His jaw had clenched, a muscle near his left ear ticking, and she swears she saw his hands curl into fists at his sides. He’d turned his face away and for a moment, Sansa worried he was disgusted. It only took one more glance to tell that wasn’t the reaction her injury invoked.

It was pure, unadulterated fury. For a moment, he looked like he wanted nothing more than to drag Ramsay kicking and screaming back from hell, to rip him apart again with bare hands rather than hound’s teeth.

Sansa knows he has scars too and not just from battle.

He carries the weight of a Kingdom on his shoulders and she wishes he’d let her in, let her share in the burden.

This is what brings her to his bed, brought running by his shout, by another nightmare.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, sitting down on the side of his bed, her hand coming out to grab his shoulder. His brows are knitted together, eyes screwed shut, and he struggles against her.

“Jon,” she tries again, shaking him slightly.

He jolts awake, breathing heavy. He blinks up at her, momentarily dazed, before he realises where he is with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, placing a palm over his forehead.

Sansa shakes her head, her hands cradling his face. His skin feels clammy, his beard coarse.

“Another nightmare?”

“It’s fine,” he says shortly, refusing to look at her.

She wonders what he saw. Father or Robb or Ygritte or his brothers, the ones responsible for his most painful scar, branded over his heart. She wonders what agonising memory haunts him tonight, but she can’t bring herself to ask.

“It wasn’t real,” she whispers instead, gently brushing the strands of hair away from his face, "it’s alright, I’m here.”

He doesn’t respond, dark eyes slightly glassy and staring ahead.

“You cannot carry all these burdens alone,” she murmurs, still stroking his hair.

She leans down, resting her forehead against his, and their noses brush.

“I will stay with you,” she whispers, “in-case your nightmares return.”

For a moment, she thinks he’ll refuse. He’s refused in the past, dismissing her with an easy “ _I’ll sleep better alone_ ” and leaving her cold and empty. But now, with her forehead resting against his and her breathing uneven, he just pulls back to look at her.

She burns under his watchful gaze, his hands slowly travelling to her waist.

“Alright,” he murmurs softly, before pulling her body on top of his.

She bites back her gasp, feeling him hot against her, her thigh slotting between his legs.

His arms wrap around her waist, pulling her tighter against him, before twisting them so her back is against his strong chest. Sansa feels her cheeks burn, unable to make sense of the situation, as she settles into the furs.

They don’t speak, the atmosphere silent but comfortable.

Eventually, she hears his breathing even out, the arm slung around her waist loosening.

Her lips twitch into a smile, before she lets sleep overtake her too.

Sansa wakes before the dawn, moonlight streaming in through the arched window.

Through her sleepy haze, she feels something pressing hard and insistent against her behind. Her stomach clenches, fire blazing to life in her gut, when she realises what it is.

Skin tingling with equal parts nerves and anticipation, she lets her body move on autopilot.

Slowly, she shifts and begins to move her hips. Her mind floods, all rational thought hidden behind heady clouds, and she feels heat flare low in her core as she rubs against the insistent hardness in his sleep trousers.

Her movements are hesitant to start with, unsure as she is of how they’ll be received. They’ve been together for years, yet the void between them still remains.

Before she can second guess herself, she feels the whole of him stir behind her. If she wasn’t sure whether he’s awake, she is now.

As his arm tightens around her waist, she freezes, heart hammering against her chest. He doesn’t move either, still behind her, and her cheeks burn with mortification.

She’s about to shuffle away, about to mumble a half-hearted apology, when his hand travels to her hip, bunching the material of her nightgown. His sure fingers splay over her hipbone, and _he_ begins to move _her._

Sansa inhales on a gasp, mouth dry and chest tight. Jon dips down and she can feel the scratch of his beard against her neck, the heat of his breath dancing across her skin.

His cock presses harder against her ass, shallow thrusts that make clear his intention. Sansa brings her left hand up to his cheek, slowly turning to face him. As she does so, her mouth brushes against his, unaware of how close they were.

Before she can pull away, he captures her lips in a soft kiss. She melts into him, opening for him so his tongue can softly entwine with hers.

When they break away, he breathes her name into her mouth.

_“Sansa.”_

She doesn’t speak, can’t speak, paralysed by lust and confusion.

“I never did apologise, did I…” he murmurs against her mouth, accent sharpened by desire, “for not including you in my plans?”

Sansa swallows, eyes focused on his mouth as she slowly shakes her head.

The pupils of his own eyes are blown to black as his gaze flickers from her lips to her eyes and back again.

“Allow me to acquit myself…” he says, pulling her close and rolling her onto her back before she can question him. He softly nudges her head to the side and kisses her neck, before slowly moving down her body, “…my Queen.”

Sansa’s breath catches and a strange tightness erupts in her chest because… that’s all she’s _ever_ wanted. For him to call her his Queen, to treat her like his Queen – an equal, not just his wife. The title sends shivers across her skin, a very different kind of shiver from the one normally invoked by his cold, frosty voice.

She stays still, the sounds just those of her uneven breathing, scared as she is for the moment to snap, to break. She soon finds him between her legs and her stomach clenches as he regards her for a moment, before slowly lifting her shift to above her knees and spreading her thighs.

She’s not embarrassed by her body, not anymore, but the way he looks at her flesh, the soft patch of auburn curls between her thighs, makes her cheeks burst into heat. He looks at her cunt like a starving man, a wolf, and she keens against the bed when he finally dips down and puts his mouth on her.

She gasps, a sharp intake of breath, as his tongue slides back and forth. He’s done this numerous times over the years and it’s never lost its thrill, pleasure sparking from her head to the tips of her toes.

He grips her thighs, tight enough to leave bruises she won’t care about in the morning. She thinks about the mornings in Winterfell then, about the blushing handmaidens who would never mention the Jon-hand shaped welts branded on her skin. It gives her a strange thrill, to still feel the burn of her King’s hands days after, the marks so different to the ones left by Ramsay.

He spreads her thighs wider, tongue wringing out her pleasure. She tries to keep her hips from moving and his hands pin her down when she can’t, his pretty mouth playing her like an instrument he mastered years ago. When his teeth graze her sensitive clit, she chokes on a sob, her hand flying to his hair. She tugs at the leather band that ties it back, needing to run her fingers through his thick curls.

At the scratch of her fingers against his scalp, he lets out a groan that’s more like a grunt into her flesh. Pleasure sparks at the sound. She loves these moments, when he’s not the cold, condescending, ruthless King in the North, but a husband needing to please his wife. She’s always hated his reserve, his ability to stay cool while she runs too hot, and she revels in even momentarily making him lose control. 

His dark eyes snap to hers and the mixture of his mouth on her cunt and his eyes on hers makes her stomach clench, her thighs beginning to tremble around his head.

“Please—” she doesn’t know what she’s begging for but he gives it all the same. He eats messily, his face slick with it, and when he finally dips his tongue inside her, she shatters with a too-loud cry.

She trembles in the after-glow, tiny shocks sparking up and down her body. Mind fogged, she registers him wiping his mouth, before he’s back on top of her, one arm bracing himself beside her head.

She grips onto his nightshirt like he’s the only thing anchoring her to the world.

“That’s not how you make an heir,” she breathes heavily into his shoulder, feeling his chest rumble under her palm.

She leans back, running a hand over his face. Her fingers trace the scar below his eye before they brush over his too-pretty mouth, feeling it wet and sticky with her own desire. She suddenly feels warm again and she pulls him closer.

“I'm aware,” he murmurs simply, dipping down to kiss her.

His other hand guides his length, now fully erect, to her soaking entrance.

When he slips inside her, _finally,_ it may not quite be love – but it’s something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heard you all about Jon's POV... don't worry, I've got something cooking


	8. Chapter 8

When Sansa wakes under sheets damp with red, she finds herself disappointed.

Jon is already gone, rising before the dawn, the same as when they’re home. Sansa’s alone, staring down at bloody sheets, a lump forming in her throat. She swallows past it, blinking back hot tears and telling herself to get a grip.

After-all, how can you be upset over something you never had?

When she tells Jon, she can’t read the expression on his face.

He looks blank, feelings hidden behind that mask, and she wants to shake him.

It’s only when she apologises, a fist around her heart, that he seems to spark to life.

“What are you sorry for?” he says, brows furrowed as he takes a step towards her.

She feels a pressure, a stinging, in her temples and her nose and she blinks back tears again.

“I said I’d give you a son,” she whispers.

“And you will,” he takes another step, closing the distance between them, taking her face in his hands.

His dark eyes bear into her and it’s like looking directly into the sun, too much to bear. She has to look away, glancing towards the floor. 

A finger under her chin drags her gaze back to his.

“We’ll try again,” he says defiantly, “alright? We’ll try again.”

The first tear rolls down her flushed cheek at his uncharacteristic softness, his kindness. He brushes it away with his thumb and she leans into his touch, thinking about little girls and boys who look like Catelyn, babes with raven curls and Tully blue eyes.

She didn’t realise how much she wanted it, wanted them. 

“Okay,” she whispers.

With his thumb and forefinger gripping her chin, he drags her mouth to his.

His kiss is so soft it’s almost painful but she can tell he’s disappointed too.

“I have a cousin in Winterfell,” Harry says, the day before they prepare to leave for home.

She pauses, Catelyn perched on her hip.

“That’s… interesting,” she says lamely while Catelyn plays with the intricate necklace around her neck. She arches away from her touch, tutting her slightly as she removes her little hands from the jewellery. Catelyn pouts, annoyed.

“I’m glad you think so,” Harry replies, amused.

“Perhaps we will welcome you to the North soon, my Lord.”

“Sooner than you think,” he says, “in only a fortnight’s time, I will be journeying there for said cousin’s wedding.”

Sansa falters again, unsure how to react.

“Oh?”

“I should like to see you,” he pushes again, “to reminisce about old times.”

Sansa looks away, gaze stretching out over Blackwater bay.

“We were _children_ , Harry,” she murmurs, still not looking at him, “too many lifetimes ago to matter. What good would it do to speak of such things?”

“What are you afraid of?” he counters rather than answering the question, his voice a light-hearted chuckle, “your husband? You’re afraid he may get jealous?”

Sansa’s gaze snaps to his then and a disbelieving scoff falls from her lips.

“My husband has little time for petty emotions like jealousy,” she says dryly, “he is a King.”

Harry’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly and he tips his head to the side, looking like he’s in on a secret but he’s not sharing.

“He is also a man.”

Sansa stares for a moment, blue eyes blinking, before Catelyn interrupts her next thought.

“My father’s a King,” she babbles happily.

Harry’s eyes light up, an amused chuckle escaping his lips at her random observation.

“Yes little one,” he leans forward, tapping her softly on the nose, “your father is precisely who we’re talking about.”

“He’s the most strongest, most bravest in _allll_ Seven Kingdoms,” she chatters, extending her arms out to emphasise her point.

Sansa’s lips twitch, rolling her eyes to the sky.

“Fitting, isn’t it?” she murmurs, amused, “I carry her for nine moons… birth her, kicking and screaming into the world… and she’s still her father’s little princess.”

Harry’s expression is unreadable as he gives a short nod.

“He’s a lucky man.”

Sansa doesn’t speak, can’t speak. She doesn’t know what to say. Luckily, she doesn’t have to, can avoid the uncomfortable situation for a little while longer at least, because the Dragon Queen is fast approaching in the distance.

Jon lifts his eyes from the papers in front of him at the two raps on the solar door.

“Come in,” he says, voice low and smooth.

When the door opens, he’s surprised to see Brienne on the other side, standing somewhat awkwardly with Catelyn. The little girl happily holds her hand, the thumb of her other in her mouth, but Brienne looks uncomfortable at the contact.

Jon stands, movements abrupt.

“What’s wrong?” he practically barks, wound too tight, “where’s Sansa?”

“She’s fine, your Grace,” Brienne says quickly, noticing the way the furs around his shoulders rise and fall as the tension in them unwind. She fights back a smile. She knows that look. That brief flash of anxiety that swept over his normally stoic features. He was worried.

 _The cool, sullen King in the North_ , she thinks amusedly, _he is not so hard to read._

“She asked me to bring the Lady Catelyn to you,” she continues before he can ask again, wanting to further assuage his worries, “she is speaking with the Dragon Queen.”

Jon quirks a brow but doesn’t push the subject.

“Alright,” he murmurs, holding a hand out, “come, Catelyn. You can sit with me while I work.”

Catelyn beams, a bright smile lighting up her little face. 

She takes his hand, briefly closing her eyes when he softly ruffles the curls he gave her.

He sits back down at the desk, pulling his daughter onto his lap. She leans forward, little fingers tracing over the worn parchment, when he notices Brienne quietly slipping out.

“Brienne,” he calls her back, voice commanding.

She turns obediently, hands clasped behind her back.

“Won’t you consider coming home?” Jon asks, “I know Sansa misses you.”

“The North is not my home, your Grace, and the Queen no longer requires my services,” Brienne insists, “I have kept my promise to her lady mother. She is safe, with her people and with you.”

“And what of you? Cersei cannot be overjoyed by your presence, considering Ser Jamie’s clear affection for you,” Jon hints at the true reason for Brienne’s desire to stay in the South, a reason that his sharp eyes picked up on at the Dragonpit.

Brienne’s eyes widen, like a startled deer.

“I do not ask to judge,” Jon continues quickly, “I merely want you to consider it.”

“Her Grace does not need me,” Brienne repeats quietly, but she sounds small and unsure.

“She will _always_ need you.”

Brienne falters, a sad expression flickering over her stoic features. It’s silent for a moment, something unspoken but clear nonetheless passing between them. Eventually, she gives a short nod that Jon returns, and she’s gone.

Oblivious, Catelyn shifts in his lap and points to Winterfell on the map in-front of her.

“Home,” she says happily.

“Aye, clever girl,” Jon murmurs, “that’s home.”

“We’ll go back there soon?” she asks, twisting to look at him.

Jon’s gaze flickers over her face, taking in his hair and lips but eyes unmistakably her mother’s. He tucks a curl behind her ear and nods.

“Tomorrow, in-fact,” he says, “we have everything we need from our visit here.”

Catelyn turns back to the table, curious fingers drifting over the map again.

“I don’t like it here,” she pouts, brutally honest as always, “mother doesn’t like it.” 

He knows Sansa would never have said these words, not in front of her, and not for the first time, he wonders at what a perceptive, intelligent daughter they’ve created. The one unquestionably good thing they’ve done together.

“Your mother has some difficult memories here, from when she was younger. You remember we told you about Grandfather Ned?”

Catelyn’s brows pull into a frown and he can see the cogs in her head turning as she tries to remember the little they had told her. Of course they kept the gory details hidden, young as she is, but Sansa had insisted on her daughter knowing Ned Stark's name. He decides to put her out of her misery and keep talking.

“Well, the last time your mother was here, she still had grandfather Ned and your Uncle Robb and _her_ mother, Lady Catelyn, your namesake. Now they’ve been taken from us, they had to go away, and it’s hard for your mother to remember them.”

“Was she like mother?” Catelyn asks about her namesake, expression wild and excitable and always curious.

In many ways, shaped and moulded by her unforgiving hand, Jon owes much of who he is to Catelyn Stark.

He takes a moment to think about her,

He thinks about the coldness in those Tully blue eyes, the ones that stare back at him every day when he looks at his daughter and wife. He thinks about the harsh and resentful way she treated him, like a traitor, a bastard. He thinks about how she hated him, an innocent child, for belonging to a mother he couldn’t even remember. He thinks about her cruelty… and then he thinks _no,_ his wife is _nothing_ like her mother.

Except…

“She was fierce when it came to protecting her children,” he murmurs eventually, “she would have done anything for them. So yes, I suppose in that way, your mother is _very much_ like her.”

Catelyn hums, seemingly satisfied with this answer.

“Let’s go home then,” she nods, seemingly content to make all the decisions, “I don’t want Mother to be sad.”

Jon’s lips twitch and he strokes her hair again.

“Aye, little one,” he murmurs, “me neither.”

“I hear you’re leaving,” Daenerys is saying, voice lilting and unreadable, as they walk side by side through the gardens.

“Aren’t you?” Sansa counters, hands clasped in-front of her, “negotiations are over. We have peace, tentative as it may be. The dead could attack at any moment, we must go home.”

“Your husband will fight in the coming battle, I assume?” Daenerys asks, tone deceptively innocent. Sansa sees through it, suspicious eyes narrowing.

“He’s the best swordsman in the North,” she shrugs, all matter of fact, “it would be foolish for him to stay behind.”

“He is also the _King_ , is he not?” Daenerys arches a perfect brow, her sarcastic tone confirming that she doesn’t consider him a King at all, “doesn’t the future of the North depend on him not embarking upon a suicide mission?”

“Jon would never hide behind his crown. How can he expect our people to fight for him if he will not fight himself?”

She doesn’t want him to go there, wants nothing more than to keep him shackled behind the safe walls of Winterfell, but she knows better. She knows what he must do.

“You worry for him.” Daeneys says – and it’s not a question.

“He’s my husband and the North my home.”

“You would do anything for him then, for your home?”

Sansa pauses, unsure where this is going.

“What is your point, your Grace?” she asks tiredly, “why are we discussing such things? Cersei said it herself – the dead are the true enemy. We need not antagonise each other.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Daenerys drawls, an icy edge to her voice.

Sansa looks away, irritation bubbling under her cool surface.

“So we can trust in you for the battle ahead?” she wants to confirm, remembering the allusive way she had acted before. She wants to hear it from her own lips again.

“I told you, my dragons are your dragons. I will fight for you. I will fight for the North.”

She nods, relieved. 

But then Daenerys is speaking again and what she says next steals the breath from Sansa's lungs, the bottom of the world falling out beneath her.

“When you bend the knee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok originally this story was gonna be 10 chapters, but I've removed that now. Lets face it, I'm not wrapping this bad boy up in 2 chapters!


	9. Chapter 9

" _What_?"

Sansa stops walking, frozen in her tracks as though Daenerys has just punched her in the stomach. She can't speak, she can't even _breathe;_ all she can do is stare at the other Queen, heart hammering against her ribcage.

 _When you bend the knee,_ the words crowd the corners of her mind, moving inwards, echoing incessantly louder. 

Daenerys is unmoved, expression set in stone. Her blue eyes glint with something sinister, something cold, and for the first time, Sansa can see she is the Mad King's daughter.

“You heard me,” she looks like she’s struggling not to roll her eyes, her voice cold and indifferent and teetering on bored, “you need my armies, you need my dragons. I’ll give them to you _gladly…_ when you and your husband bend the knee.”

"You saw that... _thing_ ," Sansa says eventually, her throat burning, "you saw what we're facing... the fate that befalls all of us if we don't work together. And still, all you can think about is the _Iron Throne_?"

Her voice is tinged with disbelief, peppered with hints of anger. Panic blisters her stomach and she feels like she's walking on unsteady ground.

Daenerys’s icy expression doesn’t change, unaffected as she is at the accusation.

"It's all I've ever wanted," she shrugs, "to take what is rightfully mine back from the people who destroyed my family."

"That doesn't matter now!" Sansa insists, brows pulled into a frown.

"It's _all_ that matters."

She stares at her for a moment, suspended between fury and incredulity. 

"You cannot win without my aid," Daenerys is speaking again, "you know this."

"And if we don't win, there will _be_ no Iron Throne. There will be no Seven Kingdoms," Sansa fires back, "you will be Queen of a wasteland, ruling over ghosts."

"So it is in everyone's interest for you to yield to me," Daenerys shrugs again, undeterred, "give me Winterfell, relinquish your crown and my dragons are yours. I'll let you both remain in the North, as its wardens."

Sansa tries not to roll her eyes, "how charitable of you."

"You said it yourself. None of this matters if we are all dead. Why cling on so stubbornly?"

"The North is our home. It's _ours._ We fought for it when it was taken from us and we won it back. The Northern Lords chose us to rule over them, to be loyal to them and keep them safe. They will _never_ accept a Southern ruler, not after what they've been through. What was taken from us."

"They will if their King and Queen do," Daenerys insists, arching a perfect brow. 

"They won't," Sansa repeats again in a murmur, a small shake to her head, "there have only been two Kings in the North in over 300 years. One rode South and died for it. How will it look when the other returns and has given our home away?"

"You are so focused on the things that don't matter," Daenerys sighs, turning her head to the side, almost bored, "Your pride and your name and your silly traditions. They are just words, are they not? It will not matter who your people follow, if they are all dead. Think of them, think of what's best for them, for their survival. Think of your daughter..."

At the mention of Catelyn, Sansa's eyes snap to hers. She narrows her gaze, fire flashing, and anger flares in her gut.

"Do not presume to lecture me on my child," she practically growls, "you cannot even begin to understand what I would do for her. You are not a mother."

"But I am," the Queen fires back passionately, a slight crack in her perfect veneer, "I have three children... and you are asking me to sacrifice them, to put them in danger, fighting for a foreign people and a foreign land, to gain nothing in return."

" _Nothing_? We will all die!" Sansa raises her voice, "how can you not understand that?"

"I understand perfectly," Daenerys is back to her cool, collected self, "and I think, deep down, you do too. Talk to your husband. Make him see sense."

"Jon will never give up Winterfell," Sansa insists - and of all the things she's not sure of anymore, she's sure of this, "he almost died fighting for it. My brothers died."

"Well then, let's not make the same mistakes," Daenerys says cooly, seemingly done with this conversation, "I will await your decision."

At that, she turns on her heel and in a flurry of blue and white, she's gone.

  
  
  
  
  
"She wants us to do _what_?" Jon practically snarls, limbs coiled and thrumming with barely restrained anger. It rolls off him in waves, charging the air, and Sansa fights the urge to grimace.

"I know," she murmurs, rubbing a tired hand over her face, "I tried to appeal to her, but she's insistent. She won't help us, won't give us her dragons or weapons or armies, until we bend the knee."

" _Until_?" He repeats, eyes flashing dangerously, "let's get one thing straight, Sansa. That will _never_ happen. We are a free and independent Kingdom. I am _not_ subjecting our people to a Southern tyrant _again_."

Sansa stares at him for a moment through narrowed eyes before an incredulous sound falls from her lips.

"Why are you speaking to me like that?" she says, brows pulling into a frown, "you think I'm not aware of all this? I was there too, Jon. _I_ was the one who convinced you to fight for our home. You went to war for _me._ A war you would've _lost_ without me. You did not win back Winterfell alone."

"What is your point?" he asks, practically growling at her.

"My point is, I _matter,_ " Sansa replies passionately, one hand over her heart, "I'm not one of your subjects—"

"—no, you are my _wife,_ " he interrupts, spitting the word like a stab from a sword and just as painful.

"Yes, I am your wife," she says, voice quieter than before, "and I am loyal to you, _always,_ but I am not the enemy. We have to work together."

His gaze hardens and she watches a muscle in his jaw jump.

"What would you suggest?" he asks eventually.

"I _suggest_ we think about this. Rationally," she holds a hand up when he inevitably goes to interrupt, a furious expression flashing across his features, "you said it yourself before we came to Kings Landing. You said the issue of whether the North remains a free and independent Kingdom will not matter if we are all dead. I don't like it anymore than you do, I told her as much. But we have to think about it carefully, Jon. And whatever happens, whatever lies ahead, we have each other. We'll protect each other."

His jaw hardens again and he has to look away.

"Because I've done such a great job of that so far."

Sansa's blood boils in irritation, at his insistence to see himself as some sort of martyr. 

"You're not Robb," she reminds him, "You're not father or Rickon. I'm not Ygritte."

His eyes find hers again at that, but he doesn't look angry the way he normally does when the wildling's name is brought up. He just looks conflicted and sad and very, very tired. 

Sansa thinks about Ygritte then, about the time they had spent together. 

It angers her sometimes, how she's sickeningly, _painfully_ jealous of a ghost. She's jealous of the way she had him - all of him - all the sides of him she doesn't get to see. She's jealous she got to be close to him without getting burned. 

She taught him about love and sex and what it meant to be wild and free. She knew what his fingers felt like and what his tongue felt like and she knew the noises he made when he was aroused but... did she know what he looked like when Ramsay's face was bleeding beneath his hands, or the way his voice sounded hollow when he spoke about Ned, or how he lost a part of himself when he died and never truly got it back?

Maybe he doesn't love her the way he loved Ygritte, but maybe he _does_ and he just doesn't know how.

He's so haunted by the ghosts of all the people he's loved and lost, he's blind to the truth in-front of him. The harsh reality that he can't keep everyone safe, that he's not a god. 

"There's a reason she didn't come to me with this. She thinks she can manipulate you," is Jon's only reply and his voice is cold, rough.

Sansa rolls her eyes to the sky, "or perhaps she thinks you'll listen to me. That we can have a rational, level headed discussion about it. You would have shut it down immediately."

"You _should have_ shut it down immediately," he bites back and Sansa's tired. She's tired of him taking his frustration out on her, tired of him blaming her for all the wrong things. She never wanted this either, had the crown thrust upon her as much as he did, and she's lost just as much.

"I did," she insists, feeling like they're going round in circles, "but now I just... I can't stop picturing that _thing_ and Catelyn being hurt and you going to war and not coming back and I can't..." she pauses and closes her eyes, feeling like she's about to give too much of herself away, "I don't want to lose you."

 _There,_ she thinks. _I said it._

Jon's expression barely changes and if she didn't know him better, she'd say he was unmoved. But there's a slight glint to his eye, the brief flicker of something soft over his brooding features. But he composes himself and it's gone before it can truly mean anything.

"You cannot put your own needs above the needs of the Kingdom," he says eventually, sounding like the King and not like Jon.

Sansa feels like crying, her chest too tight. They were getting somewhere, she _knows_ they were, and now he's retreating, he's pulling away again, and in the blink of an eye, he'll be gone. 

"Jon," she tries again, voice soft and imploring, "just... _talk to me._ Please."

He turns his face away for a moment. 

"I will not bend the knee," he says eventually, voice clear and commanding, "you will not bend the knee. Do you understand?"

_No._

"Yes," Sansa murmurs, "I understand. We will find another way."

He nods, short and curt, and Sansa's insides scream and shout.

She thinks about Catelyn, about keeping her safe, then she thinks she doesn't understand at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this longer chapter! :)

In her dreams, Sansa sees the undead.

It walks behind her, close but not quite touching. It unnerves her to see its black presence just out of the corner of her eye, like a dark shadow, like when eyelashes stick together. She walks, jogs, _runs_ , but her feet are frozen. She stumbles over rocks and slips down rabbit holes. The dead thing has no such difficulty, its decaying, sinewy legs taking one stride for each of her two and easily stepping over the holes she falls down.

The dream shifts, alters, and she recognises the setting. Her home… only not. It lay in ruins, the great keep of her beloved Winterfell fallen rubble at her feet. As she walks, blood soaked Stark banners crunch under her boots. She sees the eyes of her bannermen turned to vacant ice blue. Great, noble Northern Lords reduced to mindless soldiers for the undead's army.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Sansa _knows_ she's dreaming, yet she can't wake up. She wants to pull herself out of her body, shake herself, scream at herself, but still, the terrifying visions sear behind her eyes.

In the great hall, amongst piles of broken bodies, she sees Jon, sitting lifeless in the throne that means nothing now.

Her eyes can't find little Catelyn and her mother's intuition can't sense her, can't feel her, and somehow this is worse. She doesn't need to see her to know she's gone.

It's Sansa's own strangled scream that jolts her awake.

It feels more like a premonition than a dream.

It's the morning they leave for Winterfell and still, Jon won't break, won't even bend.

Sansa pleads with him until her throat is hoarse, begs him to at least consider it. The pleas fall on deaf ears, insistent as he is that they will defeat the undead without fire or dragons or the betrayal of Cersei's already fraught peace treaty.

 _You have to be smarter than father,_ she had told him once. _Smarter than Robb._

Yet here he is, clinging to the same sense of honour and loyalty that got them killed. Sansa won't make those mistakes. She won't lose another man she cares about due to damned pride.

"We cannot fight a war amongst ourselves," she says, voice heavy and significant, "those were your words, were they not? _We have too many enemies now_. Well, we do not. We have one. One that truly matters if any of us are to survive this winter."

"We will find another way."

She wants to scream.

"We're going home today and Daenerys will be gone. We have to decide now."

"I have decided," Jon says, infuriatingly calm and collected with that eyebrow quirked, "I will not give our home away. I have already lost too much."

"Well, so have I!" Sansa cries, raising her voice. She feels a perverse jolt of satisfaction at how he falters slightly, how he recoils, stunned at her outburst. It feels good to ruffle those constantly composed feathers.

But shouting isn't going to help, no matter how frustrated she is.

"We take what we can get, Jon," she says finally, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, "and we do our best with it. The North named you King."

"I know that. It's the greatest honour of my life," Jon says, brows pulling into a frown.

Sansa sighs, taking a step towards him.

"And _they_ know that," no-one could dispute his loyalty, his bravery, his love for his people. That's not what she's talking about, "they chose you because they respect you, because they love you. Those cold, hard Northern bastards put their faith in you. So why do you have no faith in yourself?"

She's not calling them bastards to be offensive. The men of the North _are_ hard – proud, unbreakable men who do not trust easily, who have no time for flowery promises. Yet they had trusted in him. Had got down on their knees for him, bowed before their swords.

They trusted in him to make the right decision, to speak on their behalf. They trusted him to do the right thing, always.

 _They trusted in you too,_ a small voice in the back of her mind whispers, _they might have named him King, but they also named you Queen._

They trusted in her to do the right thing too.

 _If he won't do it_ , Sansa tells herself, _I will have to._

"Your husband doesn't like me," Daenerys says, and it's not a question.

Sansa's gaze flits to hers, trying to gauge her reaction, but the Dragon Queen doesn't look affected.

"He doesn't trust you," she says honestly. There's no time for lies, no room for them. The fate of thousands is at stake and the burden seems to have fallen on Sansa's shoulders.

"It seems the White Wolf trusts no-one," Daenerys rolls her eyes, sounding irritated by the moniker, "not even his wife."

Sansa huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You do not need to insult me," she says tiredly, "we trust each other just fine."

Her voice doesn't waver as she hides behind a cool mask, but the words sound wrong on her tongue.

Daenerys tips her head to the side, cold blue eyes flitting over her frame.

"Well then, I shall go ask him what you've decided," she turns on her heel, ice blonde hair flicking behind her shoulder.

"No, wait," Sansa grabs the crook of her elbow, pulling her back. "Wait, I'll tell you."

Daenerys' gaze flickers from Sansa's hand, still clenched around her elbow, to her nervous eyes and back again. Finally, she steps back, crossing her arms and arching a brow expectantly.

"Well?"

Sansa blinks and those terrifying images sear behind her vision again. The undead walking, Winterfell destroyed, Jon dead and Catelyn gone. She can hear her pulse pounding in her ears, the blood rushing through her veins.

Time seems to stand still for one, solitary moment, before her mouth seems to open without her permission.

"We will bend the knee," she says, and the pounding in her head stops and she's suddenly, inexplicably, calm, "you have my word."

Sansa soon learns it doesn't matter where you are, North or South, word travels quickly.

She locks herself away, under the pretence of preparing for the journey home, but really because she can't face the drama unfolding outside. Cersei is predictably furious, taking back her offer of peace as quickly as she granted it, screeching she should've known better than to trust a dragon in wolf's clothing and his traitorous whore.

She can't hide for long and she's never been able to hide from _him_.

When Ser Davos calls for her, he almost looks nervous.

"The King-" he falters for a moment, as though he's second guessing whether he can use that title anymore, "-the King has requested your presence."

From where she stands in the corner of the room, hand hovering over the sword at her hip, Brienne's face falls. Sansa forces a smile, preparing for the storm, as she kisses Catelyn's head and leaves her playing with her toys, unbothered.

She gives Brienne a soft nod on the way out, walking on steady feet behind Ser Davos.

When they reach the room Jon's in, he opens the doors and hovers awkwardly.

Jon's standing by the window, back to her, and his voice is low and gruff when he finally speaks.

"That will be all, Ser Davos."

He nods, curt and short, before leaving Sansa alone with her husband.

Awkward silence stretches out in the widening gap between them.

Finally, he breaks it.

"When you came back to me, all those years ago, you begged me to go to war," he starts quietly, still looking out the window, his back to her, "I told you I was tired, that fighting was all I'd done since I left home. Still, you insisted. You told me I had to fight for our home, to take it back from the monsters who stole it. I was done, Sansa. I was tired and barely alive and _done._ "

Sansa clasps her hands in-front of her, remembering the man she'd returned to. Cold and broken and only half brought back from the dead. Murdered by his own men, he hadn't come back right. Something had dislodged, something was lost, and it was a subject they never touched upon. It hurts to think about it now.

"Jon..."

"But I did it," he carries on, ignoring her whisper of his name, and still he doesn't turn to look at her, "not for Winterfell, not for the North, for you. Because _you_ asked me to. Because I would have done anything for you."

Sansa notices he's speaking in the past tense and her chest feels too tight.

"We lost so many men. Good, honourable men..." he says, so quiet now it's like he's speaking to himself, "we lost Rickon."

Sansa's heart clenches, hot tears springing to her eyes.

"Jon, the situation is different now. We're out of time and we can't win without her. You know how much I love Winterfell. It's my home too. But we need allies more than we need a crown."

Finally, he turns to look at her, and the coldness in his steel grey eyes almost makes her shudder.

"I told you I would have found another way. We've won battles and faced down impossible odds before, without the help of a _Targaryen_ ," he practically spits the last word and it betrays him.

His bitterness towards the house is personal and it irritates Sansa.

"And I told _you_ I was not willing to put our child in danger. I will do whatever it takes to protect her. You cannot undo what I have done, not without weakening our position, so we must do our bests with it."

She won't apologise, won't back down, used as she is to adapting to difficult situations. To facing down men who underestimate her. She's a wolf, not a timid mouse, and she's not afraid to face the consequences of her actions.

But Jon doesn't even look angry, just betrayed and hurt, and it's this that stings the most.

"You seem to like to use my words against me. So I'll use some of yours," he takes a step towards her and his tone cuts like ice, " _If we don't take back the North, we'll never be safe_. Well, now you've given it to the dragons... and it was all for nothing."

"Please, Jon-" she reaches for him and swallows past the lump in her throat when he turns away, "-we can work with this. We can win this war."

"We will," he says defiantly, "I am going North. Bran has sent word that the wall has fallen and the dead march South. War is already here."

Sansa's gut turns to stone at the thought of going home without him, of leaving it like this between them.

"Catelyn and I are going back to Winterfell, aren't we?" _alone_ _,_ her tone seems to say.

"Aye. I will ride towards the undead with the Dragon Queen's army. What's done is done and as you say, we must do our best with it."

He uses her words but they're twisted into something negative, something cold, and she wants to reach for him again.

He doesn't give her a chance to. With one more indeterminable look, he's turning away from her and walking towards the door.

Sansa tries one last time, her hand darting out to grab his forearm.

"Please, my love," she whispers tearfully and she's never called him that before. It just happened, just came desperately flying out of her mouth without her realising it, and his dark gaze flits from the hand on his arm back to her tear-filled eyes.

He doesn't say anything, just watches her heavily, and she blinks back the tears.

"I know that you are angry," she murmurs, "but if we leave it broken like this between us... we will grow into the break."

His gaze, dark and sullen and hurt, seems to flicker from her eyes to her mouth and back again, before he too-gently picks her hand up and removes it from his arm. Even through gloves, his fingers burn where they touch her skin and she can't stop the first tear from falling.

Then he's gone, taking the pieces of her shattered heart with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me!! Remember it's gotta get worse before it gets better... also the long promised Jon POV is next. Normally I'm against dual POVs as I think it better builds tension to keep it one-sided, but I appreciate Jon is hard to understand/sympathise with in this, so it's more necessary than usual. Hope you noticed the Medici line! Though I do hope Jon isn't as much of an asshole as Cosmio


	11. Chapter 11

"Mama says you're not coming home with us."

Catelyn's voice is small, quiet and choked with tears. Jon’s suffered more blows, emotional and physical, than he’d care to admit, but nothing hurts quite like this.

He lowers himself to her eye level, resting on his haunches.

“I can’t, little one,” he says, honeyed Northern accent soft the way it always is with her, “you remember I told you I’d always keep you safe? Well, there are some bad… people… who want to hurt us and I have to go and deal with that.”

Catelyn’s bottom lip trembles and he watches her valiantly try to blink back tears.

“I want you to stay.”

Jon sighs, casting his eyes downward.

“I want to stay too,” he says, “I always want to stay with you. But I’m a King. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Catelyn nods, still looking brooding and sullen. Jon’s suddenly struck by how much she looks like him. In these moments, it’s like looking in a mirror, seeing his own reflection staring back at him.

“It means you have duties,” she trips over the word, not entirely understanding what it means.

Jon’s lips twitch into a smile.

“Aye. Duties. But I will be back home with you soon. In the meantime, I want you to promise me something. Can you do that?”

She nods enthusiastically, always eager to please him.

“I want you to promise me you won’t grow anymore,” he tries to lighten the subject, reaching out for a stray raven curl. He smiles gently and tucks it behind her ear.

He’s joking of course, but then in a way, he isn’t. He thinks about all the things he’s missed while he’s been lost to his duties as King. He thinks about how he was leading a meeting when she babbled her first word. He thinks about how he was meting out justice for a raper when Sansa noticed her first teeth breaking through and how he was visiting Castle Black the day she took her first steps. He’s already missed so much, sometimes through no fault of his own but sometimes due to his own carelessness.

She’s constantly changing, constantly evolving, and it causes a strange tightness in his chest to think the girl he’ll come home to might not be the same girl he left.

Catelyn smiles finally, bright and wide, “I shall try.”

“You must be strong,” he adds, one eyebrow arched, “you must look after Mama for me.”

“I will,” she nods, solemnly this time, taking this vow very seriously, “I’ll be strong. Strong like a wolf.”

The ache in his chest intensifies and he swallows, his throat suddenly dry.

“Aye, like a wolf. You are the heir to Winterfell. You are my daughter…” he says fiercely, grey eyes shining like that _means_ something, “and I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

Catelyn nods before opening her arms and throwing them around his neck. He holds on just as tight, feeling her soft and fragile in his arms.

“I love you too, Papa,” she says quietly – and it’s what will keep him going through the harsh winter ahead.

He doesn’t speak to Daenerys until they pass the Twins – and only because she forces him to.

“You know, I thought you’d be more grateful,” she says disdainfully, “I am giving you the aid of my armies _and_ my children, after-all.”

“At a price,” Jon bites back shortly, “a price I was not willing to pay.”

Daenerys smirks, giving a small shrug.

“Yet here you are. Blindsided and betrayed by your own wife. You hate me, yet it seems your enemies are closer to home.”

Jon fights to reign in his temper, feeling a clench in his jaw.

“I do not hate you,” he says coolly, “I feel nothing for you. And my wife is not my enemy. She had her reasons.”

Daenerys’ icy eyes narrow, seeing straight through him.

“You need not pretend, my Lord,” she drawls, voice deceptively light and calm, “she’s made you look very foolish. Undermined you and herself, truth be told. What other choice did you have but to bend to me now? Gods, I wonder if the _last_ King in the North was this insolent when he bent the knee to Aegon…”

She examines her nails like they aren’t perfect, like there would ever be even a speck of dirt under that porcelain skin.

His gaze snaps to hers, a storm raging behind his grey eyes.

“I always have a choice,” he all but growls, “and the last King in the North was _Robb_ Stark. History appears not to be your strong point, your Grace. Perhaps you should have invested in better teachers.”

He turns his face away, cruel and disinterested, but Daenerys is undeterred.

“None of this bravado detracts from the fact that your wife has left you in quite the mess. You do not trust me, that much is clear. In part because of what my family did to yours. In part because you _are_ my family and you hate yourself for it. Either way, it’s clear your wife doesn’t respect you. Doesn’t trust you to keep her and your daughter safe.”

Her words hit too hard, press too close, and anger flares in his gut.

He’s sick of being on the wrong foot, of never quite fitting together, never quite understanding each other. He feels like they’re walking away from each other, drifting close but never quite touching before they splinter apart again.

He’s known her since she first opened her eyes on the world, and even before that.

He knew her when she was making Lady Catelyn sick in the morning, glowing her skin and rounding her belly. In many ways, he’s been jealous of her from the start. A boy of barely four peering into her crib, sick with envy at this babe who would be allowed to call Catelyn mother and look through Tully blue eyes. He’d stared at her little wisps of hair, light like Robb’s, and wanted to pull at his inky curls, rip them out from the root.

He’d borne the brunt of her bitterness, the girl who treated him like the bastard he was, and he’d cared for her even when she hated him.

In his darkest moments, despite all that’s passed between them since, he thinks she still does.

He’s never been good with his emotions, always been his own worst enemy. Too stubborn, too unmovable.

She’d wanted a golden-haired prince, and instead got Joffrey and Ramsay and Littlefinger and _him._

Sometimes he thinks about his inclination towards redheads, wonders if a part of him ever loved Ygritte because she reminded him of her _._ Them. The women who never wanted him. 

They both let their scars get the better of them - fighting each other when they should be fixing each other- and still, neither of them know how to be in the world without the other.

Jon’s temple throbs and he sighs and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

“I am grateful for your help, Daenerys,” he says in the end, and he won’t call her Queen, “we will need to stick together for the battle ahead. But I have no interest in making small talk with you – and I will not allow you to disrespect Sansa. She is my family, my _only_ family. You will not turn us against each other.”

Daenerys smiles, but it’s cold and empty.

“No,” she murmurs, “you’re both doing that quite well for me.”

As they move towards the undead, the days feel shorter and the nights even longer.

Jon spends his days strategizing with Daenerys’ army, trying not to think about his family, his home… trying not to miss her. He’s still hurt, still betrayed, but he can see the method behind the madness, can recognise the pitfalls of his own stubbornness. Though he’s still sure he could’ve found another way, Daenerys is a capable strategist and her armies invaluable allies.

What Sansa doesn’t understand, what she’s _never_ understood, is that every move she makes, every word she speaks, has the power to rattle him.

That the shine of her hair under the rare sun, the crease to her brow when she's worried about Catelyn, the taste of her mouth after she's eaten too many lemon cakes... these things have become home to him even more than Winterfell. 

It’s been that way since she came hurtling back into his life, all those years ago at Castle Black.

He’d treated her like an injured bird back then, wary of all she’d gone through. When she was happy, he was happy, and when she wasn’t, he just… didn’t know how to _be_ at all. So all those times she picked fights, all those times she didn’t want him near her or called him a dragon or spat that she didn’t love him… all those times she _hurt_ him and she just couldn’t see it.

Somewhere along the way, she might have softened, might have started to let him in, but shaped and moulded by the harshness of his past, the walls were already up, constructed high around him.

He knows he’s not innocent. He knows he hurts her as much as she hurts him, probably even more. He doesn’t blame her for his own feelings, knows something’s got to give, something’s got to change. After-all, he’s not a bastard anymore and she’s not the little girl who hated him.

She’s tried and he hasn’t, not the way she has, determined as he is to cling onto the past.

He comes to this realization somewhere near the now-fallen wall, in a tavern they’ve settled in just before the final fight.

He senses someone’s presence, his sharp senses alight, and when he turns and candlelight illuminates Daenerys’ naked body, lying on the bed, he’s not surprised.

“Get dressed,” he orders flatly, turning his face away without his gaze so much as lingering, “and get out.”

Daenerys is undeterred, a playful smirk pulling at the corners of her cherry lips.

“It’s rude to deny a gift,” she sighs exaggeratedly, making no move to cover herself, “and your Queen.”

This seems to get his attention, as she knew it would, and his gaze snaps back to her. He keeps his eyes firmly on her face and she’s impressed that they don’t even so much as flicker downwards. Not many men have had the power to resist her, and she’d be lying if she didn’t find his apparent disinterest intriguing.

Those steel grey eyes narrow and she feels a thrill at the fire in them.

She can glimpse the dragon beneath the wolf.

“I'm married,” he practically growls, jaw clenched tight, “and you are not my Queen.”

“Ah yes. Your _queen_ is in Winterfell... where you left her,” Daenerys says pointedly, one eyebrow arched.

Jon sighs and closes his eyes and he’s suddenly very, very tired.

“Just go, Daenerys,” he murmurs, “there is nothing for you here.”

The Queen rises, ice blonde hair covering her breasts. She’s unashamed of her nakedness, comfortable in her own skin, and when she lifts her hand to stroke his cheek, her skin’s so hot, it feels like a burn.

Sansa is always cold, cool and soft and comforting like the North. The symbolism isn’t lost on Jon.

“There are ways other than bending the knee to show allegiance,” Daenerys is saying, “let’s stop dancing around this, Jon. Your Queen doesn’t love you. You are clearly not a united front. Love hasn’t grown in all these years, why do you keep clinging on? You were brought back from the dead for a reason. You are a Targaryen. I sense it in you. Your strength, your fire. You should not be withering away in the cold and unforgiving North. You should be with me. Breaking the wheel with me. Ruling by my side.”

Jon’s mouth parts, his brows pulled into a frown. He tips his chin, gently moving his face away from her reaching hand.

“You are my aunt,” he says, trying another tack, like it means everything when really it means nothing.

“And Sansa is your cousin,” she shrugs, “for a long time, she was your sister. Yet you have a child and clearly have no issue laying with her.”

“It’s not about that,” he chides, “I know what you’re doing, Daenerys. You see me as a threat to your precious throne and you want to keep me under your thumb. It’s why you went to Sansa, manipulated the situation. You knew I wouldn’t bend the knee, but you also knew she would do anything if you appealed to our child. That’s fine, I no longer care. I don’t want the Iron Throne, I never have. All I’ve ever wanted is to keep the North safe. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m _not_ a Targaryen. I never will be. If you want to fight beside me, I will be eternally grateful. But my gratitude is all you will ever get from me.”

Daenerys blinks, standing a little taller, prouder despite her nakedness.

“I want your word,” she demands, eyes slightly narrowed and glistening with barely concealed disappointment, “your word that you will not seize your birth right and try to take what is mine.”

Jon gives a short nod; this he can promise.

“You have my word.”

When the war comes and the white winds blow, Jon’s last thought before the fall is of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to what Sansa's been up to next!


	12. Chapter 12

"Thank you again, Brienne," Sansa says when they're just outside Winterfell's gates, "for leaving the South. For coming with me."

The other woman turns her head and her lips twitch and it's the closest thing Sansa's ever seen to a smile.

"I made a vow to your lady mother," she says like that's explanation enough, "when your husband left, I could hardly allow you to journey North alone. I... I am sorry for leaving you in the first place. I hope you can forgive me."

_When your husband left._

Brienne's tone is neutral but Sansa can hear the accusation behind her words. She doesn't agree with Jon's decision, his insistence on going to war and leaving Sansa behind. Their significant eye contact, ice blue on blue, soon grows too much for her to bear and she turns her face away, staring hard at the castle in front of her.

_Home._

She hadn't realised how much she'd missed it, missed the North, and there's a strange tightening in her chest. She swallows past the lump in her throat, everything so different, yet so much the same.

"There is nothing to forgive," Sansa says eventually, very aware of Brienne's feelings for one certain Kingslayer. She understands the woman's initial desire to stay in the South, but the selfish part of her is overjoyed she's decided to return.

Her horse shifts beneath her, impatient to go home, and her hands tighten around the reigns until her knuckles turn white.

"What if they hate me?" she whispers eventually, "what if they never forgive me?"

Brienne doesn't need to ask what she's referring to and she gives a heavy sigh.

"You are their Queen," she says clearly, "bending the knee to Daenerys doesn't change that. Not really. They love you... and they will understand."

Sansa appreciates her friend's effort and her lips twitch into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

As they move forward, she's not so sure Brienne's right.

After-all, how are the Northern Lords supposed to trust her, to understand she's done the right thing, when their own King does not?

“I will stand behind _Jon Snow,_ I said,” Lord Glover spits through gritted teeth, his top lip curled into an angry snarl, “Jon _Stark._ The _King in the North._ ”

He ends on a scoff, rolling his eyes to the sky. Sansa tenses besides Bran, hands curling into fists under the table. 

“Actually, my Lord, I remember precisely what you said,” she insists, trying to keep her expression neutral, “ _House Glover will stand behind House Stark, as we have for a thousand years_. If anything, I am more Stark than my husband. You pledged to stand behind me, to trust in my decisions, and this is what I have decided.”

“To give our home away?” he practically explodes, face turning a furious shade of crimson. Still, Sansa does not balk, “to subject us to a Southern tyrant, to doom _yourself_ to the same fate as your brother, to _spit_ on the faith us Northmen showed in you… _this_ is what you have decided?”

“I _decided_ to use my authority as Queen to do what needed to be done, no matter how difficult. Being Queen is the greatest honour of my life. Being King is my husband’s. This was not a choice I made lightly.”

“But you’re _not_ a Queen,” Lyanna Mormont speaks this time, voice ringing too harsh and strong for a girl her age, “you left _Winterfell_ a Queen. I’m not sure what you are now.”

The words hurt and Sansa’s chest feels too tight.

“My husband told us we need allies or we will die. I have secured the most powerful one. I had to choose – between my crown and the North. I chose the North.”

“And now your husband is fighting besides the Dragon Queen,” Lyanna drawls and the words are innocent but it sounds like a taunt.

“Yes. He is risking his life for us,” Sansa says pointedly, “again.”

Lyanna’s gaze narrows, unimpressed.

“I hear she’s very beautiful. It doesn’t bother you that your husband is frolicking up there with her?”

It _does_ bother her, more than she’d like to admit. Jealousy is a woman’s weakness, and she is not weak.

Yet she can’t shake the horrible image of them together, the nagging sensation that her husband’s dragon’s blood may be stirring to life as they sit here, useless in the cold North.

“Of course not,” she lies, voice hard, “you need not question his loyalty. The _only_ reason we yielded was because Daenerys gave us no other option. She refused to help us unless we bent the knee. You have to believe I would _never_ have done so if there was another way. She was all that was left.”

“ _You_ and _your husband_ were all that was left. _You_ brought peace to the houses,” another Lord speaks, voice low and gruff, “we are loyal to you, not to her. We don’t know her. The free folk don’t know her.”

Sansa briefly closes her eyes, feeling very much like she’s flogging a dead horse.

“My lords, you do not need to understand. You don’t even need to forgive me. But I hope in time that you will.”

She leaves them to their dissatisfied murmuring then.

There’s nothing more to say.

Harry Hardying arrives for his cousin’s wedding on a Tuesday, flanked either side by friends from the Vale.

“Winterfell is yours, my Lord,” Sansa greets when he’s dismounted his horse and made his way towards her, “please… make yourself at home.”

Harry nods, throwing her a charming smile and kissing her hand.

“You are too kind, Sansa,” he says and his hand lingers longer than what’s necessary atop hers.

Sansa smiles back and Harry does as she says.

He fits in in the North, his presence a welcome distraction from the dull ache in her chest. Things were easier the last time he was here. When he clashed wooden swords with Robb and Theon in the courtyard or helped Bran to read or carried Rickon on his shoulders. Sansa would watch him back then, smiling from where she stood on the balcony, dreaming of the way he’d look at her the day they married in the Godswood.

At the back of her mind, she feels a twinge of guilt at the memory. It’s like a fog has lifted, like the corners of this perfect image are fading outwards to reveal a sullen Jon, always slightly out of frame, always on the side lines. She hadn’t cared back then, always treating him like a bastard, but now her cruelty gnaws at her like a disease.

“It’s just as I remember,” Harry says one day, voice warm.

Sansa wants to disagree, glancing Jon in her memories, but _seeing_ him for the first time.

When he mentions Robb, the ache in her chest intensifies.

“He would’ve been so happy to see you,” she murmurs softly, a sad smile tugging at her lips.

Harry’s face falls and he turns to look at her.

“I’m so sorry,” he says sincerely, “no-one should have to go through what you’ve gone through. No-one has,” he ends on a bitter, disbelieving scoff. 

_Jon has,_ Sansa thinks with a twinge. Jon’s not a pampered prince from the Vale. Jon’s brave and loyal and the strongest person she’s ever met. He’s faced down wildlings and giants and monsters like the Boltons. He’s been killed by his own men, hated by his own family, and now he’s fighting the dead for a home he’s already lost.

“We all have our crosses,” she shrugs eventually.

Harry looks at her for a moment and the seriousness of his expression makes her uneasy.

“Don’t,” she murmurs before he can, “just—don’t.”

“Why not?” he takes a step towards her, “Sansa, it wasn’t the right time for us before. As you said, we were children. But we’re not anymore. You’ve always known how I felt about you.”

“I’m married,” she says but the words ring hollow.

“To a man who doesn’t appreciate you,” Harry bites back without hesitation, “everyone can see how cold he is, how ruthless. You deserve better.”

“It’s not a case of what I deserve,” she bites back just as harshly, “we don’t choose who we love.”

He quirks a brow at that.

“Do you love him?”

Sansa pauses. She hadn’t even realised she’d used that word, unused as she is to having it on her tongue.

She admires him. She admires his strength, his quiet grace and sheer power. She loves his touch, the way his hands fit over her body, a connection that remains intense and unchanging after all these years, no matter how they fight. She loves the way he loves their daughter, their people. She loves parts of him, the parts he doesn’t often let her see.

“You shouldn’t ask me that,” she says eventually, “I have to go.”

She leaves without answering – she doesn’t know how to.

“I want Papa,” Catelyn says one night, defiant and angry.

Sansa pauses, hands hovering over the sheets. She gives a heavy sigh before she finishes tucking her in, trying not to let her sad expression affect her.

“He’s not here, Catelyn,” she says quietly, “he’ll be back soon.”

It’s a lie. She doesn’t know when he’ll back. He could trot through the gates tonight. He could return in a week’s time, a moons’ time, a year’s time. He could not return at all.

Sansa’s sick of lying.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks, placing a soft hand on her forehead, “are you unwell?”

“I want Papa,” Catelyn repeats stubbornly, brows pulling into a frown.

“You can sleep in my bed if you want—”

“I want Papa,” she says, louder this time and she does feel clammy, but it’s clearly not sickness that’s ailing her.

“Your father is away. He’s fighting for us, you know that.”

“I. Want. Papa.”

“I know, Catelyn—”

“I want Papa!” she shrieks, loud and fierce.

“So do I!” Sansa shouts back.

Silence falls over them and she recoils, stunned at her own outburst.

Catelyn blinks, wide eyed and shocked, before her bottom lip trembles. Her teeth bite into it defiantly and her gaze is cold and sad and Sansa’s never seen her look at her like that before.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she says, but the little girl's already turning away, burying her face in her pillow.

Sansa wants to apologise again. She wants to say she’s sorry and that her father will be home soon and everything will be fine, but she can’t because no-one’s even said that to _her_ yet. She can’t say these things, she can’t say anything at all, because a horn suddenly sounds in the distance and there’s commotion outside the chamber doors.

She rushes to the door, finding Brienne outside.

“Watch her,” she demands, waiting for her nod before pushing past.

“What is it?” she asks Bran when she rushes to the balcony and sees him there.

He turns to her.

“It’s the King,” he says smoothly, “it’s Jon. He’s back.” 


	13. Chapter 13

Sansa hovers on the balcony, cold and unsure, her eyes glued to Jon in the courtyard.

She watches him pat Tormund on the back, embracing some Lords and avoiding the more sceptical others. She watches him kiss Bran on the forehead and smile a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and she can’t help but notice he’s alone.

As though drawn by a magnet, it doesn’t take long for his gaze to find hers.

Blue on grey, their eyes lock. The feeling is as intense as ever, unchanging no matter the circumstances. For a moment, it hurts to look at him and she fights the urge to look away.

As he walks towards her and she towards him, it feels like a mirror image of that time at Castle Black, when they were reunited for the first time. She’d been so full of hope then, tired and broken and hurt but so relieved to see him. Her last scrap of home.

Now she doesn’t know how to feel. She just knows there’s an ache in her chest more powerful than before.

When they finally reach each other, the hesitation is the same as before… but this time, there’s no fierce embrace.

They just stand before each other, the atmosphere stretching out tense and heated between them.

She swallows past the lump in her throat.

Strong and severe and unsmiling, he looks just the same. She wonders how she looks to him.

“How was your journey?” she asks finally, voice hoarse from disuse. She fights the urge to wince at the stupidity of the question.

If he finds it stupid too, it doesn’t show. He doesn’t show anything at all, other than a simple tip of his head.

“Long,” he says curtly, “and tiring. I just want to sleep.”

Sansa nods, shifting awkwardly.

She waits for a moment before stepping to the side at the expectant raise of his brow.

“Goodnight Sansa,” he murmurs quietly as he brushes past her and goosebumps rise to the surface of her skin as his shoulder skims past hers.

As she turns and watches him leave, she thinks one thing is clear.

He hasn’t forgiven her.

“The war is far from over,” Jon says the next day when the Northern Lords are gathered in the great hall, “the army of the dead is defeated, but Cersei remains.”

“What about the Dragon Queen?” one of the lords asks, his voice dry and derisive, “where is she? Are we to kneel to her now?”

Something flickers over Jon’s face, that practiced, stoic expression slipping, before it’s swiftly back in place. From where she sits by his side, Sansa’s brows pull into a frown, an unsettling sensation swirling in her gut.

“The Dragon Queen was a formidable enemy,” he starts, tone even, “and yet a valuable ally all the same. Her dragons were of great use in the fight. But she did not live.”

The hall breaks out into happy, triumphant cheers, but Sansa can’t hear them.

She can’t see them.

Frozen, she sees only Jon, watching that muscle in his jaw jump with every clench.

“It appears things have worked out quite well for you then,” Lyanna Mormont says eventually, “I suppose you just expect things to go back to how they were? To be renamed King?”

Jon looks unaffected by her harsh tone.

“If that is what you and the other Lords decide,” he says smoothly, “but things are not as perfect as you make them out to be. Whatever is left of Daenerys’ army is scattered across the seas, disjointed and disillusioned and without their leader. One of her dragons perished, but the other two remain, rootless in the world and untamed and _also_ without their leader. And of course, Cersei remains in Kings Landing, even angrier at the North for our betrayal.”

It sounds like an accusation, pointed at her, and Sansa shifts in her seat.

“We have a long journey ahead of us,” he’s continuing, his voice strong and sure and just like the King he was, “a lot of work to do. Until the Lannisters are defeated, we will never be safe. I know we have hurt you. You think we’ve betrayed you. But whether you decide to put your faith in us again, or turn away from the Starks, we will always defend the North. We will always do what is right.”

The hall is quiet, all murmuring stopped, and Sansa notices that he’s using “us” and “we”, not “I”. He’s angry, that much is clear, but she’s encouraged by how he’s still presenting them as a united front.

Now if only she could get him to speak to her – that would be a start.

A whole week after he’s returned, when Catelyn has let go of his leg, allowing him the occasional five minutes without her glued to his side, Sansa finally confronts him.

She finds him in his solar, poring over battle plans and strategic maps.

 _No rest for the wicked,_ she thinks sourly.

“What are you doing?” she asks, entering without knocking and closing the door behind her.

Jon doesn’t so much as glance up.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to decipher where and when Cersei will attack.”

Sansa sighs, reading him like a book. He’s trying to distract himself, trying to keep busy. Anything to stop him thinking about what he’s gone through, stop him talking about it to her. Sharing it with her. He’s always held his cards too close to his chest.

“Don’t you think you should rest?” she suggests, taking a step further into the room. She stands in-front of his heavy oak desk, fingertips just grazing the surface, “you’ve been through enough.”

Finally, she gets his attention and he looks up. His eyes seem to narrow slightly before he stands, making his way around the desk.

When he’s in-front of her, Sansa takes a moment to look at him, eyes flitting over his body.

He’s wearing a dark tunic and soft cotton breeches. He doesn’t need to turn around for her to know there’s a tiny, stubborn stain on the back of his left knee and the bottom of the tunic is slightly frayed on one side. And she doesn’t need to reach out to touch him to know the cloak and pelts he wears around his shoulders are heavy and worn and soft…

His hair is loose and wild in a way she hasn’t regularly seen since they were teens, only when he’s had a long, awful day and he’s been running his hands through it and flexing his jaw.

He looks very sullen and quiet and tired and she just wants to put him in bed and wrap her body around him.

“I’m fine,” he says, not quite looking at her.

“Oh really?” she crosses her arms over her chest, unimpressed, “is that why you haven’t spoken two words to me about the months we’ve spent apart?”

"I have been busy, Sansa.”

“So have I,” she scowls, “running the North while you’ve been gone.”

“ _Been gone_?” he huffs humourlessly, “you make it sound like it was some sort of trip I took for fun.”

His eyes are focused on a spot to the left of her shoulder, not even looking at her.

“Why are you _doing_ this?”

His gaze finally snaps to her. “What?”

“Why are you pushing me away? You said yourself Daenerys was a valuable ally. Was it such an unforgivable sin to win her aid for you? You’re still here, are you not?”

“Aye, I’m here,” he says, but he doesn’t sound happy about it, “when so many others aren’t. So many others didn’t make it, yet I’m _still here._ I almost died, _again,_ but I’m still here.”

She wants to know how. She wants to know all of it, every battle, every stab, every wound. She wants to know how the Dragon Queen fell and how many of her army are left and _how_ he made it out alive when they didn’t and selfishly, more than that, she wants to know if he was happy without her, because she was so lost without him.

“Jon…” she reaches out for him, but his hand darts out and his fingers close around her wrist none too gently before she can.

She bites back a gasp, the charged connection making her draw back in fright.

“Gods,” he says, still clutching at her wrist and sounding like he's in pain, “just… stop.”

His hand stays there, warm, calloused fingers wrapped around her, and his eyes fall shut and she can’t move. She doesn’t want the moment to snap and break; she just wants him to keep touching her.

“Jon…” she whispers his name again, almost choking on the word.

He hushes her, so quietly with his eyes closed and his brows furrowed, she’s not sure he even knows he uttered it.

“Just – be still. For me.”

She is. For him.

The air feels too thin, closing in around her, and she can feel his warmth, the strength radiating from him, and she can’t breathe.

There’s some shuffling outside, a steady knock on the door, and Jon lets go of her wrist and opens his eyes.

“I missed you too,” she whispers.

He nods and takes a deep breath.

She doesn’t miss the way his fingertips graze hers before she leaves him with Ser Davos.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Harry says, hands clasped behind his back as they walk through the hallways.

Sansa nods, distracted. “I wish you a safe journey, my Lord.”

Abruptly, he stops walking.

“Come with me,” he blurts out, making her freeze, “it doesn’t matter that Daenerys is dead, the Lords aren’t going to forgive you for bending the knee. They won’t trust you. _He_ won’t trust you. There is nothing for you here.”

Anger swirls with surprise in the pit of Sansa’s stomach.

“This is my home,” she says, “ _everything_ is here.”

She sees her frustration mirrored in his eyes and he takes a step towards her.

“The Vale could be your home. You wanted that once, wanted _me_ once. You know it’s true.”

“Too many lifetimes ago to matter,” she repeats what she once said, her voice quiet and resolute.

“He doesn’t love you,” he says finally – and it’s a low blow.

“And you do?” she practically snarls, her chest feeling too tight.

“I always have,” he answers just as quickly, with no sign of hesitation, “I have always thought of you, always wished for a way for us to be reunited. This is our chance. Leave him, Sansa. He’s selfish. He’s manipulative and cruel and he’s played you for years. It’s no secret that I’ve always wanted you. Even Jon knows it.”

He moves towards her, his confidence growing, and Sansa can’t move.

“I could make you happy, Sansa. I know I could. I would be better for you.”

She stares at him, wide eyed and blinking, and still, she can’t move.

“Let me show you,” he murmurs – and then his mouth is on hers.

In the distance, she swears she sees a pair of narrowed, steel grey eyes – before a heavy door closes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun duuuun! the big one is next....


	14. Chapter 14

He finds her in her chambers that night while she sits at her desk, absentmindedly brushing her hair.

His knock is steady and sure, and when she murmurs for him to come in, he moves so quietly, she almost doesn’t hear him.

“I’m meeting with the Lords again tomorrow,” he says by way of greeting, “despite your best efforts to destroy everything we’ve built, it looks promising that we will be named King and Queen again.”

His voice is derisive, colder than she’s heard it in a while, and her hand freezes where it hovers beside her head. Slowly, she lowers her hand and places the brush on the desk.

She laughs bitterly and there’s no humour to it. Lifting her eyes to the mirror, they connect with his from where he stands behind her.

“You know, I risked everything in securing Daenerys’ help for you. You left me here, left your _child_ here, at the mercy of the Lords you say I betrayed,” she turns on her chair then, narrowed eyes staring daggers at him, “and yet, I still did everything I could to clear your name. I told them how brave you are, how you were fighting for _us._ In reality, I’m not so sure you care about anyone other than yourself.”

She knows she doesn’t imagine the fire that flashes through his eyes then, and she can’t help the cheap thrill that travels the length of her spine.

“After-all, you jumped at the chance of journeying North with her. Perhaps you have outgrown your lust for redheads. Perhaps you are more dragon than I gave you credit for.”

His jaw clenches, slightly hooded eyes narrowing, but still he doesn’t bite back. She wants to scream. She wants him to scream. She wants something, _anything,_ from him and she wants to break him like he’s breaking her.

“You think I enjoyed her company?” he says finally, voice irritatingly calm and composed while hers shakes.

“You didn’t exactly look _happy_ when you said she died.”

He quirks a brow at that.

“Would you have preferred that? Would you have wanted me to gloat at her death, to rejoice in watching a young girl, barely older than us, die painfully at the hands of the walking dead? Would you have wanted me to cheer as that _thing_ tore down her dragon and thrust its knife into her belly? Do you think I’m Robert Baratheon?”

Sansa’s too blinded by her own pain to feel any kind of guilt. She just crosses her arms over her chest stubbornly, narrowing her gaze at him.

“No, you’re nothing like Robert. But if you expect me to cry for her, you’re sorely mistaken. And while I never wished for her death, you’re a noble fool if you think she had no ulterior motives.”

“I know all about her motives,” he says with an easy shrug, “she made them quite clear.”

A horrible, foreboding sensation swirls in her gut and Sansa doesn’t _want_ to ask, but her mouth is moving without her permission.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She wanted me to leave you,” he says, that honeyed Northern accent sure and even, “she wanted us to rule together, the last Targaryens. She offered herself to me one night, came to my room naked as her nameday.”

His tone isn’t particularly cruel, but the words hurt all the same. Tiny shards of pain stab at Sansa's heart like glass; it feels like she’s dragging them in with every breath.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks quietly, “are you trying to hurt me?”

Something hard and dark flashes over his face.

“I’m telling you this because _I_ said no,” his voice is pointed, the tip of his brow making it clear what he’s getting at. If she wasn’t sure before, his next icy words confirm it, “because you are my _wife_ and I am loyal to you. Because you have no right to judge me, when you cannot say the same.”

Her stomach drops at the confirmation that he saw what happened with Harry.

He still looks unaffected, stoic as ever, but his expression falters ever so slightly and she can see through the cracks to the hurt underneath. She can see the unwanted bastard, the war-traumatised King, the uncertain and unsure little boy, constantly rejected. Then she’s angry because he clearly didn’t see what happened after.

He didn’t see her push Harry away, furiously wiping her mouth and reiterating that her home was here. He didn’t hear her defend Jon, pledge herself to him, _always_ , no matter what.

 _After everything,_ she thinks sadly, _he really thinks that lowly of me._

“Yes, he kissed me,” she stands finally, fury flashing through her eyes, and this time, Jon’s mask breaks and he practically growls at the words, “yes, I thought about kissing him back. But I didn’t. I pushed him away. For _you._ Because despite everything, I am – and always have been – yours.”

 _Of course_ she had thought about it. In that moment, when his lips, cold and cool like the North, touched hers, she had thought – just for a second - about giving in. Images of life in the Vale, of Catelyn running free, had seared behind her eyelids. She had been so broken, so tired of feeling unwanted and confused and rejected.

Maybe she was tired of Jon’s restrained and unemotional kiss being the only one she knew. Maybe she itched to brand Harry on her skin, to have his hands undo everything Jon had done. In that moment, she convinced herself he could make her feel the way he did.

She would feel that fire for him, just as she had for Jon.

Maybe things would be better with Harry - easier – because she _doesn’t_ love him. She doesn’t want him. Not the way she wants Jon – desperate and violent and painful. 

But as soon as Harry’s lips had touched hers, she’d realised she wanted that. Or more accurately, she didn’t want the quiet, sensible, patient kind of love Harry could offer her.

She wants Jon. She wants _them -_ all of them - messy, uncontainable and wild. 

The revelation floors her and she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. She doesn’t want to be around him anymore, his sharp eyes reading her like a book.

She feels vulnerable, unsure, and she tries to push past him.

He grabs her easily, both hands curling hot around the tops of her arms. His fingers dig into her skin, his top lip curling into a snarl.

“Do you expect me to _thank you_?” he bites out bitterly, “that was your duty as my wife _._ ”

The laugh she throws back at him is just as bitter and she hurls it like a weapon.

“And what of your duty as my husband?”

The words seem to snap something inside him.

Before she can react, something dark flashes through his already black eyes, and then he’s crashing his mouth to hers.

Sansa gasps, her surprise providing him with the opportunity to slip his tongue in her mouth. Lust snaps at her heels like wildfire as she buckles against him, mouth slanting desperately against his. After a moment, she comes to her senses. Angry at him for trying to distract her, she bites his bottom lip, revelling in his heated growl as she pushes him away with two hands on his chest.

For a moment, they just stare at each other, chests heaving.

Time seems to stand still.

She wants it so violently, she’s practically shaking with it.

Without breaking heated eye contact, Jon takes a step forward. His pupils are blown to black, mouth shining pretty and swollen, and Sansa forces herself not to move back as he approaches.

He doesn’t kiss her again.

Instead, he holds her gaze as his sure hands travel to her thighs. Bunching the material of her dress, he starts to pull it up, eyes focused on her face. Her own eyes flit to his mouth, gaze hooded, needing to taste him again, as he walks her backwards and keeps pushing her dress up.

Everything starts to move faster then, burning brighter and hotter than before. Breath quickening and gaze darting from his face down to her own body, she starts to help him, pulling the material of her dress up until its pooling around her waist.

His hands travel to her ass, fingers digging into the skin, before hooking around the back of her thighs. As he lifts her onto the desk behind her, he finally kisses her again.

His kiss is messy and angry and uncontrolled and Sansa revels in it. She matches his anger, pouring every emotion she’s felt over the past six years into the kiss.

It feels like the culmination of something, like everything’s been building up to this.

Her hands fly to his hair, pulling at the leather band that ties it back. When she finally rids him of it, fingers gripping and pulling at his inky curls, he releases a heavy groan into her mouth. He breaks away from her, dragging his mouth to her cheek then down her neck.

She tips her head back, breath caught in her throat as he plants hot, open mouthed kisses down the length of her flushed skin. She spreads her legs wider, allowing him to step between them, pulling her flush against him. She moans at the feel of his hardness, straining against his breeches, pushing against where she needs it most.

She grinds against him – tiny, circular rotations of her hips that have him growling his desire into her neck.

“Tell me you want me,” she gasps, feeling a vice around her heart.

He stills for a moment, before his lips whisper a prayer into her skin.

“I have always wanted you.”

It’s too much, too intense, and tears burn behind her eyelids.

She grabs his face and her kiss is fierce. She tries to pour everything she can’t bring herself to say into his mouth, let it heal them, heal him.

“Take me to the bed,” she gasps into his mouth, “I want you to fuck me.”

He grunts his approval, strong arms wrapping around her waist. He kisses her again and doesn’t break away from her mouth as he carries her blindly to the bed.

His fingers are already tugging at his laces before her back’s even hit the furs.

Panting, she rests on her forearms and spreads her legs to accommodate him when he lowers himself to her body. She helps him push his breeches down his thighs, not bothering to push them all the way off before wrapping her hand around his hard cock.

His head bows as he lets out an uneven grunt, bucking into her hand. She squeezes him tighter, thumb flicking over the tip, before dragging it to her wetness.

“Fuck me,” she demands again, panting against his cheek, “my King.”

He moans into her mouth, hardening even more at her words. He doesn’t waste any more time, spreading her legs and spearing her in one, smooth movement.

She keens against him, a broken gasp flying from her mouth.

He sets a fast and brutal pace, passionate anger thrumming from his body. He thrusts into her tight wetness, her cunt squeezing him, and she almost sobs with pleasure when he surges up and pulls her thighs higher up his body.

His hands curl around her waist, roughly thrusting her up and down his cock, and she watches his muscles tense under the strain.

“ _Gods_ , your cunt feels so good,” he murmurs, one hand travelling between her legs so his thumb can circle her tiny bundle of nerves, “always so warm and wet for me.”

“Yes,” she gasps, spreading her legs wider and pulling him deeper inside, “for you. Only for you.”

He growls his approval, lowering and bracing his weight on his forearms as he fucks her in hard, shallow thrusts. Her fingers dig into his sweat-slicked back, carving desperate moon-shaped crescents into his skin.

He rubs at her clit harder, talented fingers wringing out her pleasure. She feels that tell-tale coil in the pit of her stomach, white hot pleasure threatening to blast through her at any moment.

“That’s it,” he reads her, “I want to see you. Come for me, my Queen. My love.”

And of all the things he could’ve said right then, all the dirty, filthy words he could’ve whispered, _that’s_ what pushes her over the edge with a desperate cry. 

He’s not far behind her, her orgasm milking his cock and pulling his own from him. He spills inside her with a kiss, releasing a grunt into her mouth.

As he rolls off her and pulls her to him, she settles her head on his chest, red hair fanning out over his sun-kissed skin.

For perhaps the first time, those three little words burn on the tip of her tongue.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this is a lot fluffier than I'm used to, but hope you like it

Watching her finger trace invisible circles on his chest, Sansa thinks about how absurd this is… to be shy and unsure around your husband of six years.

Yet, with anticipation and nervous excitement thrumming through her blood, it feels like the first time. Like they’re two new lovers, just becoming acquainted, just learning each other.

It’s never been like this before.

This time, this night, he doesn’t just roll over and fall asleep. He doesn’t just place a polite, detached kiss on her forehead and bid her goodnight. He doesn’t return to his own chambers.

He stays by her side, his arm wrapped around her waist, crisp, white sheets draped casually over legs entwined together. It’s fitting, truth be told. She never has been able to tell where he ends and she begins.

Her finger flits absentmindedly over his chest, tracing over scars long healed, a map of his bravery, until she suddenly pauses.

Lifting her head from his chest slightly, she softly touches her fingers over a raised patch of scarred skin spanning from the middle of his waist on the right, across his belly button, to his left hip.

“This is new,” she says quietly, wanting to know, but not wanting to push.

Jon makes an indeterminable sound from the back of his throat, as though he had been miles away. Tipping his chin forward, his brow quirks slightly as his eyes seek what she’s referring to.

Sansa lifts her head, matching his gaze. His eyes are dark, cloudy, those impenetrable walls flying up.

“Just a scratch,” he replies easily, but she can see past that smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Jon,” she says his name, hoping her voice sounds encouraging but not demanding, “I would like to know. If you’re comfortable with that.”

He’s not, she can tell, but he sighs and obliges her anyway.

“It was a slash from a sword.”

“One of _their_ swords?” she doesn’t know how to address them, the ones who nearly took him away from her.

He nods.

“How did you survive that?” she says in awe, unsure as she is that he’s going to elaborate.

“Truth be told, I have no idea,” he says honestly and she tries not to be distracted by his fingers dancing a charged path up and down the length of her spine, “perhaps the wound wasn’t deep enough. Perhaps the Gods intervened.”

Sansa tips her head to the side, a soft smile curling her lips. She’s never taken him for a particularly religious man.

“You think so?”

His hands come up to tangle in her hair then as he softly cups her face. Sansa’s expression falters slightly, still surprised at the intimacy, and his thumbs swipe across her cheekbones.

She can’t read his expression, not entirely, but it tightens her chest all the same.

“Maybe they knew I had two girls to get back to.”

His tone is low, a husky Northern drawl, and she feels it in every inch of her body. Her eyes and throat burn and she can’t think of what to say – so she kisses him instead.

The kiss is different to the one that came earlier in the night. They’re not angry anymore, not broken, and she takes her time.

She brushes her lips across his, slowly, too softly for her preference. She fights back her eagerness with strength she didn’t even know she had. She wants – _needs_ \- this to be gentle.

She still feels his fingers in her hair, softly entwining in the tangled strands.

He presses his mouth harder to hers, then her mouth parts and she feels his tongue on her bottom lip. It’s the same kiss, his kiss, yet different all the same.

His hands, his lips, his tongue… everything so familiar and sexy and beautiful about him is still in his kiss. But there’s also trust and respect, less politeness and less a sense of duty.

She shifts slightly, deepening their kiss as his hands trail down her body to her ass. He spreads the cheeks slightly, squeezing them, as she starts to grind on his thigh, movements heady and desperate.

“How?” she mutters quietly when they break away, soft pants falling from her lips as her cheeks burst into heat, “Jon, can’t you feel this? How can you not believe in it?”

“I do.”

A somewhat bitter laugh escapes her as her lips trace his jaw, tasting rough and stubble and salt and _Jon._

“You never say it.”  
  
“I’ve said it a hundred times inside you,” his accent is sultry, sharpened by desire, and his fingers reach between their bodies to find the evidence of his release, still coating her inner thighs. He dips a finger inside her, reaching just past the knuckle, just to prove his point.

She gasps sharply, keening against him as he pushes two inside. They slip in and out easily, stretching her, preparing her for his cock again.

“That’s not the same,” she pants into his neck, lifting her leg slightly to hitch it above his waist and drag his fingers deeper inside, “I need to hear it.”

The bitterness comes from him this time as he huffs a breath, pulling his hand away so he can grab her and roll her over. He covers her with his body and kisses her once, before leaning back on his haunches and spreading her legs. With a thumb and forefinger, he parts her glistening pussy, looking at her for a moment, pupils blown to black.

“Aye,” he murmurs lowly, before pushing two fingers back inside her, “you want all the fancy talk that comes after? That makes it all special and grand?”

Sansa’s back arches, pleasure vibrating through her. She can see the movement of his wrist, quickening as he slips two then three inside and begins to fuck her harder with them.

He watches her all the while, taking in her darkened eyes and flushed cheeks.

She wants him to lick her. She wants him to spread her legs and put that unbearably pretty mouth on her. She wants to ride his face; she wants him to fuck her, to ruin her.

But she wants him to admit he needs her more.

“It _is_ special and grand,” she gasps as his fingers hit the perfect spot, “and rare and fragile and beautiful. Tell me the truth.”

“The truth?”

He covers her with his body then, spreading her legs wider so he can settle between them. She cradles him between her trembling thighs, feeling the head of his cock nudge at her entrance.

He kisses her again, wild and wet and passionate.

Then he pushes inside her, feeling her cunt clench tight around his cock.

“The truth is…” he murmurs against her mouth as his hips start to move, “while I was at war… sometimes I missed you so much I could hardly stand it.”

She sighs her reply into his mouth, kissing him deeply.

He comes with her name on his lips – and it’s the best thing Sansa’s ever heard.

When Harry Hardyng leaves Winterfell, Jon is the one to see him off.

There are no hard feelings, not really. Jon’s making an effort to leave that insecure, jealous boy in the past – and his relationship with his wife has been bitter and cold for too long.

As he stands by the gates, patting his horse, he does look sheepish.

“No need for that, Hardyng,” Jon hums, patting him on the shoulder.

Harry shifts on his feet all the same.

“I am sorry, your Grace. I overstepped my mark.”

“Aye, you did,” Jon nods, “but it’s understandable. My wife is quite the woman.”

Harry nods again, unsure of what to say.

Jon helps him out. “Goodbye, old friend.”

Harry smiles, tipping his head slightly before turning to fuss with the reigns of his horse. Just as Jon turns to leave, Harry’s voice stops him.

“You’re so lucky,” Harry sighs, and Jon turns with a quirk of his brow. Harry clears his throat, shifting on his feet again slightly, “She loves you. Even if she can’t admit it to herself yet, even if you can’t. No-one has ever looked at me the way she looks at you.” 

His smile is tinged with sadness, a melancholy expression sweeping across features normally twisted in roguish playfulness.

Jon’s brow remains arched, expression unreadable, but Harry registers the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.

Harry continues.

“I have no right to demand anything of you,” he says, well aware, “you are a King. But please… take my advice. Stop getting in your own way. Stop _ruining_ something most people never get.”

Jon blinks for a moment, unmoving, before he nods smoothly.

Harry mounts his horse, bidding Winterfell farewell.

Jon stares after him, but as he rides away, his words remain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have no idea how long this story is gonna be/how I'm gonna wrap it up but I'm still having fun with it so if you guys are still enjoying it... we'll see how it goes! :) chapter inspired by Lady Chatterley's Lover, if anyone noticed!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1000 kudos?! I could never have imagined that, thanks so much guys :)

Catelyn’s piercing scream jolts Sansa awake.

Her mother’s instinct kicks in immediately, nerves fired, as she jumps up and grabs a robe, tying the belt around her waist as she bolts out the door. He’s been sleeping in her chambers more often than not these days, but she doesn’t wait to see if Jon has woken next to her. She just runs, her legs moving on autopilot, and she can hear her pulse pounding in her ears.

At the back of her mind, she thinks she can hear him. The strength of his strides, the unsheathing of his sword, the commanding tone to his voice as he gives his orders to those around him. She thinks he says her name, and then he’s beside her.

“The courtyard,” he says before she asks, knowing where the scream came from, his senses sharper than hers. Ghost snaps at his heels loyally, growling softly, and with the flick of Jon’s wrist, the wolf is bounding ahead.

As they turn the corner, Sansa’s stomach rolls painfully. Preparing herself, she runs faster and stops at the balcony, eyes darting down, chest rising and falling with the rapidity of her breaths.

“Gods…” she gasps, choked with fear at the sight before her.

Catelyn sits in the courtyard, her dress sullied with snow as though she’s been knocked back, her expression slowly morphing from fear to curiosity. In-front of her, its nose practically touching hers, stands a magnificent dragon.

Sansa opens her mouth to scream, to order the knights around her to charge at it, stab it, burn it, _anything –_ when Jon’s hand darts out to close around her wrist.

“Stop,” he orders lowly, sharply, before his voice softens, “look…”

Fury bubbling, she turns to snap at him, wondering why on earth he would want to falter when a deadly beast could be about to snap up their daughter, but the expression on his face makes her pause.

She looks back down, breath caught in her chest. The lords and handmaidens gathered around them do the same, their faces etched in curiosity.

The dragon’s large nostrils expand, letting out a huff of powerful air. It ruffles Catelyn’s curls, billowing around her, and she suddenly lets out a happy laugh.

Sansa hears everyone’s astonished gasps. Even Jon bristles beside her, wide eyed and blinking.

The dragon leans down, softly nudging Catelyn’s shoulder, and she falls back into the snow, still giggling delightedly. The creature makes a low rumbling noise in reply. If Sansa didn’t know better, she’d swear it sounded happy too.

Still nervous, she begins to walk down the steps towards them, Jon trailing behind her.

“Look Mama!” Catelyn exclaims happily when she sees her, gesturing towards the beast, “it likes me!”

The dragon lets out an agreeable huff of breath.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Sansa gestures for her, approaching slowly and cautiously, as though the dragon were one of the easily startled deer that roam the woods of the North.

“But I’m fine!” Catelyn pouts, lifting her tiny hand to stroke the scaly, jagged skin on the side of the dragon’s head, just to prove her point.

Sansa’s stomach jolts and she takes a step forward. Jon’s hand is hot and cautious on the small of her back. 

“Dragons have no place in the North,” Lord Baelish says, voice smooth and unaffected.

Sansa feels Jon tense beside her. She gets the impression he’d have preferred Littlefinger to have stayed in the Vale, where he’s been tutoring Lord Arryn and presiding as Lord Protector for the past year or so.

“And at one point, direwolves were not seen south of the Wall,” Jon’s gloved fingers run through Ghost’s fur, echoing his daughter’s movements, “dragons have no place anywhere. Not since Daenerys died.”

Lord Baelish tips his head slightly, expression characteristically allusive and unreadable.

Jon’s jaw is clenched, his expression tight lipped. As he speaks, Sansa watches Catelyn and the beast, trying to make sense of it.

“It does seem to like her,” she says in awe. Her knowledge of dragons is limited to spotty mythology; all she knows is that they’re exotic and dangerous and _not_ of the North. She doesn’t understand why it would be so fond of their littlest wolf.

“It’s your blood,” Sam seems to read her mind, his voice soft and reverent.

“Our _blood_?” Sansa repeats, brows pulled into a frown, “we are of the North. She is a wolf.”

Jon takes a step forward, walking to Catelyn before Sansa can even think of pulling him back.

“He means my blood,” Jon says quietly.

Sansa’s gaze flits to Sam. She can practically feel the atmosphere chill, the Northern Lords bristling uncomfortably.

“You’re the last Targaryens,” Sam says, like they’re not aware of it, like it doesn’t fill Sansa with dread and despair every day, “you may be called Stark, but purposefully or not, Jon has carried on their lineage. Catelyn is the heir to the Targaryen dynasty. The creature trusts her because its mother’s blood runs through her veins.”

 _She's_ my _child,_ Sansa’s insides scream and shout, _she’s not hers, she’s mine._

As though drawn by a magnet, the dragon suddenly lifts its magnificent head and turns to Jon.

“It trusts you too,” Sam says, somewhat obviously, as the dragon nuzzles into Jon’s shoulder, its wet breath bathing over him. Jon’s brow quirks as his sharp eyes follow it, flickering from the beast to his wife and back again.

Silence falls over them as Catelyn rises to her feet and clutches Jon’s leg. As the dragon continues to nuzzle into him, Jon’s arm curls around his daughter’s shoulders, pulling her close to his body.

The last of the Targaryens, they make a fine picture. Images sear behind Sansa's vision as she imagines him wrapped up in the red and gold of fine Targaryen colours, so different from the humble and modest armour of her father and brother.

She doesn’t fit and she turns her face away from the scene, stupidly, sickeningly jealous of a creature and the ghost of a lost Queen.

He comes to her chambers the evening they’re re-crowned King and Queen.

“Are you pleased?” he asks her as he closes the door, coming to stand behind her. She sits brushing her hair, the way she always does before bed, and she imagines a silver crown on her head.

“Of course,” she says instinctively, “I’m glad it all worked out in the end.”

Jon nods smoothly, hands clasped behind his back.

“I have to admit, I’m surprised,” he says, “that they put their faith in us again. I thought the dragon would make them trust us even less.”

 _Trust_ you _less,_ she wants to say, _I’m no Targaryen._

“What will you do with it?” she asks, “Lord Baelish was right in a way. Dragons have never flourished in the North. We don’t know what to do with them.”

“We will learn,” he bites back, voice hard and unyielding, “I saw what they could do. If he fought for me, Drogon would be an invaluable asset against Cersei and her armies.”

“Drogon?” The word tastes bitter on her tongue.

“He was named after her husband,” Sansa’s thankful he doesn’t say her name, “the other two, her brothers.”

She falters at the mention of the other creatures.

“You said only one died. That means the other is flying around, rootless in the world. Do you think it’ll come here too?”

Jon shrugs.

“It is possible.”

Sansa sighs, trying to keep her expression blank.

“You don’t approve?”

She lifts her eyes, catching his in the mirror.

“They’re unpredictable. Wild and untamed and _not_ of the North _._ I don’t trust anything Targaryen.”

“I am Targaryen,” he says and her chest aches, “at least in part. You trust _me_ , do you not?”

“Yes,” Sansa whispers, because she does, "I always have."

At that, he takes a step forward, softly placing his hands on her shoulders. She leans into his touch, a soft sigh falling from her lips. His hands, sure and strong, massage her shoulders, causing tiny sparks of pleasure to vibrate through her body.

“Good,” he murmurs, hands dancing along her skin as she leans back and tips her head against his chest, “because the Northern Lords are no fans of dragons either. I’ll need your help in the battle to come.”

“My help?” she asks, a tiny thrill sparking through her.

“Aye,” he leans down, softly sweeping her hair across one shoulder so he can place a heated kiss on the side of her neck, “you are my Queen, after-all.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she hums breathlessly, “although sometimes I feel like little more than a toy.”

“A toy?”

“Your toy,” she swallows past the lump in her throat, “the North’s toy.”

“You’re much more than that,” he says, stormy eyes flickering from her neck to meet hers in the mirror, “but even so, I don’t think I’d mind being _your_ toy. As long as you promise to play with me. To take me where-ever you go.” 

“Jon,” she whispers in reply, stunned and unsure and aching between her thighs.

They need to talk. They need to discuss the upcoming war with Cersei and whether the Northern Lords truly trust them again and what’s going on here, between them. They need to discuss their painful past.

But now, with dragons flying in her head, Sansa just wants the wolf in her to swallow him whole.

She stands, twisting them and pushing him down onto the seat. She swings a leg over and settles in his lap, swallowing his grunt of surprise with a heated kiss.

This war is far from over.


	17. Chapter 17

As expected, the other dragon arrives mere days after, landing in Winterfell with an angry flourish. Landing where he doesn’t belong.

Jon is pleased, just as Sansa expected he would be. Though he understands her trepidation, he doesn’t share in it. He believes the creatures to be invaluable assets against Cersei. 

What he doesn’t understand, what he doesn’t quite get, is that their presence _hurts_ her.

She doesn’t want to be reminded of his Targaryen blood. She thinks of him as a Northern man, strong and sullen and unyielding and _hers._ Catelyn even more so. She has the North in her, the real North, and Sansa refuses to believe she’s anything other than wolf.

Normally cool and collected, Sansa’s surprised by the fire in her gut. She’s surprised by the sense of possession she feels, the need to have him, to keep him, to just be near him, always. She’s never felt this way before, certainly not about him - like a naïve, love sick little girl.

She wants him to come home to her, every night for the rest of their nights. She wants to put him in their bed and let their fingertips touch. She wants to massage his tired shoulders while he tells her about his day, and it’ll be so mundane and boring to everyone else but to her, it’ll be perfect, because it’s _normal._ She wants him to kiss her when she cries and actually _smile_ at her now and then and hold her hand like they’re children and she wants this to be _real._

She wants to be allowed to love him. She wants him to love her. 

It’s this that has her reaching out to him one evening, sitting by the fire, before he can begin to pull away with excuses about returning to his own chambers.

“How much longer are we going to dance around this?” she asks, irritated and tired and battle-weary.

He quirks a brow, glancing sideways at her, the flames casting hollowy shadows under his eyes and in all the right places. He’s so beautiful it makes her want to cry.

“What?”

“Something has changed, Jon,” she cuts to the chase, “between us. Something’s not the same. And you know it.”

He looks somewhat surprised, that brow still arched. Sansa feels her stomach sink, her cheeks beginning to flush with embarrassment as she realises she might have been wrong. He’s always been impossible to read, always such a mystery to her. He’s so guarded, so careful about expressing his feelings. Suddenly she wonders whether he’s felt what she’s felt over the past few months; he’s given her no reason to think it.

Except, a small niggling voice says in the back of her mind, sometimes he looks at her like he can’t see anything else.

He’s reserved by nature, stoic and closed off, and he never says much, but he always says _some._ And that has to _mean_ something.

“Sansa,” he says and his eyes lift to meet hers and _there it is._ That look.

No-one has ever looked at her the way Jon is looking at her right now.

“I’m not alone in this,” she starts, but it sounds like a question, “am I?”

He stares at her for a beat, before he gives a sigh and turns back to the fire.

“No, you’re not.”

She suddenly wants to shake him, to scream. She needs more than that.

“I understand, you know?” she continues because she won’t let him pull away this time, “why you’ve always been so distant. Sometimes I forget about our past, how you were treated when we were children. Most of all by me. I want you to know that all those times… those times we walked away from each other or said _I don’t love you…_ they just didn’t hurt me like they hurt you… because I’ve never known what it’s like to be unwanted. I always had my Mother and Father, always had a name. One true name. No-one ever sat me at the back of the dining hall or hid me from guests or looked at me like I was a bastard. So, if you’ve been in pain, and I’ve caused any of that, I just… I’m sorry. And _gods,_ I did my best, you know? I _really_ did. And it all went so wrong somehow.”

“Don’t,” he murmurs, so quiet she almost doesn’t hear it, “I’ve hardly been an easy husband to live with.”

She laughs humourlessly, unable to argue with that.

“What a pair,” she says, “I wonder what father would say if he saw us now.”

Something flickers across Jon’s face, something akin to pain.

“He’d want us to be there for each other,” he murmurs, because he just _knows_ , “he’d want us to be together, to live long and happy lives for him.”

It’s silent for a moment as Sansa thinks about Ned. His voice, his warmth. Sometimes she misses him so much, the wound hurts as though it were yesterday.

“I don’t want to go back, Jon,” she says eventually, “I don’t want to slide back into old habits.”

“We can’t. I can’t,” Jon’s gaze snaps to hers again, a storm raging behind his grey eyes, “there’s no going back now. I meant what I said before… about missing you. Since the day we were married, even when we didn’t _speak_ to each other, we were never apart. And when I was away, I was so angry, I couldn’t even bear to _think_ about you. Yet when the war came, my last memory… before it’s all a blur… is of you.”

“Truly?”

“Aye,” he replies softly, the flames from the fire still licking up his face, “my relationship with you is… everything, Sansa. Everything. Maybe I do still think of myself as a bastard. You wanted a golden prince and got Joffrey and Tyrion and Ramsay and _me._ You hated me and then… _you didn’t_ … and neither of us really came to terms with it. I mean, I took the black. I never expected to be a husband or a father. I never expected to be anyone at all. I don’t know what it all means. All I know is that nothing is more important to me than you.” 

His words take her breath away, causing an ache in her chest and a burn behind her eyes. She thinks about the dragons then, about his Targaryen blood, and she has to _know_.

“You’ve had so many names,” she starts, “The King in the North. Lord Commander. The Bastard of Winterfell. King Crow. The Prince That Was Promised. The White Wolf. Which are you? Who are you?”

He looks at her for a beat, but his answer is simple.

“I’m Jon,” he says, a slight shrug to his shoulders, “whatever I am… whatever is left of me… I’m yours.”

_I am his._

she remembers then, the vows they had uttered under the branches of the Weirwood Tree,

 _and he is mine._

Tonight, they echo in her mind - and it's the first time she truly believes them.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait my loves!

For as long as Sansa can remember, she has loved lemon cakes.

She remembers sneaking into the pantry and filling up on them before supper, remembers her mother’s disapproving scowl as she watched her push her vegetables around the plate. She would’ve been sure to guiltily wipe the sugar from her mouth, but mother knew. Mother always knew. The memory brings a sad smile to her lips. 

Her melancholy smile remains as she walks through the pantry again, suddenly feeling a hankering for them, all these years later. As she walks, trailing a finger across the stone table in the middle of the room, a handmaiden makes her jump.

“I’m sorry, your Grace,” she apologises, dipping into a small bow, “I did not mean to startle you.”

Sansa waves a dismissive hand, her smile now turning warm and friendly.

“Not at all. I was just…” she stops to shuffle awkwardly on her feet, a nervous chuckle falling from her lips, “it sounds so silly, but I was wondering… do you know if we have any lemon cakes?”

The young girl pauses for just a moment before her face lights up in recognition.

“Oh yes!” she exclaims happily, rushing around to a corner of the pantry behind Sansa. She disappears out of sight for just a moment before she appears again.

Clasped tightly in her hands, as though she’s holding something precious, are a crate of fresh cakes.

Sansa stares for a moment, from the cakes to the girl’s triumphant face and back to the cakes again, before she lets out a laugh.

“How?” she asks, disbelieving, taking a step forward, “I haven’t asked for any and I know the ones left from before we journeyed South wouldn’t look like this now.”

The cakes are freshly baked, soft and shining with a lemon glaze.

She reaches for one, turning it over in her hand, before returning her attention to the young girl.

“The King,” she says simply, a gentle, almost knowing smile on her face, “he asked us to make sure we had plenty. It was one of the first things he did after he arrived home from the war.”

It causes an ache in Sansa's chest, how the girl calls him _King..._ how she considers his returning North as coming home. She’s been so anxious, so worried that bending the knee to Daenerys had shattered the trust her and Jon had worked so hard to build. The confirmation that _this girl_ at least, the humble heart of the North, doesn’t feel this way warms her just as much as Jon remembering her love for lemon cakes.

The girl is still staring at her, curious now, but Sansa can’t speak. Stunned, she just looks at the cake in her hand, thinking about how far they’ve come.

She thinks of who they were back then, the snooty, highborn lady and her unwanted, unloved half-brother.

He would have been expelled from the dining hall all those nights she enjoyed the cakes after supper, Mother considering him an embarrassment. He would have been in the courtyard, taking his anger out on a straw man, starting his journey to become the best swordsman the Seven Kingdoms would ever see.

Sansa stares at the cake in her hands again, her breath shallow in her chest. 

She had no idea he even knew. 

Stoic and reserved and so shut off, he’s still a mystery to her.

He’s quiet, but he sees. He notices.

She enjoys this cake even more so than usual. Somehow, it tastes sweeter on her tongue, warming her blood.

This is why she’s so shocked when she has to run to her chamber pot, emptying the contents of her stomach.

Sansa finds Jon in the crypts weeks later, staring at the statue of the mother he never knew.

She comes to stand next to him, unsure whether to reach for him or not, and his expression is so unreadable, so quiet, she wonders if he’s even noticed her presence.

But then he speaks.

“You may not have my name… but you have my blood.”

Sansa pauses, confused. He turns to face her then, his expression soft and framed by flickering candlelight. Before she can ask what he means, he’s speaking again.

“That’s the last thing Ned Stark ever said to me,” he turns to face Lyanna again, “it means something so different now.”

“Not really,” Sansa shrugs and Jon looks to her, his brow quirking curiously, “we are who we are because of who made us. And I don’t mean who laid down with who. I mean who _shaped_ us. Ned Stark was there when you took your first steps, said your first words. He taught you how to ride and how to hold a sword and how to be strong and gentle and _good._ You _do_ have his blood. You _are_ a Stark, Jon. Far more so than a Targaryen.”

“Thank you, Sansa,” he murmurs.

The tone of his voice and the look on his face reminds her of when she gave him a cloak she’d made, emblazoned with a wolf on the strap. He’d looked so surprised, so full of awe, it had caused a strange warmth in the pit of her stomach.

As the years went by, she had yearned for him to look at her that way again. 

He looks relaxed for a moment, his expression soft and inquisitive, and it makes her feel brave enough to slowly wrap her arms around his waist. From where she stands at his side, she slips her left under his furs, around his back, as the other rests on his stomach. She feels the strong muscles twitch under her hand.

He’s still careful, still cautious with the fraught, newfound closeness between them, but eventually the palm of his hand comes to slide over the back of hers, his fingers gently gripping her wrist.

He anchors her to him and even though leather and fur, his touch still burns.

He’s still looking at Lyanna, still blinking up at her stone face, and Sansa’s chest hurts.

“You have the Stark look,” she murmurs, eyes flitting over his inky curls and his dark beard.

“Aye,” he says quietly, “it was one of my only consolations growing up. The fact that I looked like father even more than Robb did. More than you did.”

It hurts her then, to think of little Jon tormenting himself over his looks, his desperation to be one of them.

“Yes, Robb and I were all Tully.”

She says it with a soft, musical laugh that dies in her throat.

For she thinks of her poor mother and Robb then, whose bodies they couldn’t even bring home... whose bones turned to dust in the unforgiving, unfamiliar lands of the South.

“They should be here,” she voices her sorrows, eyes flitting over the statues lining the crypt.

She watches Jon's jaw tighten, a muscle near his ear ticking.

“They should,” he concedes, “it seems wrong they will be missing, when we’re all laid to rest.”

 _We’ll never be whole,_ Sansa thinks tearfully, _we’ll all be here, together, and they’ll never be anywhere._

Perhaps his words have shaken him too, because before she realises it, he’s turning in her arms and gently cupping her face.

“You must never die,” he says suddenly, expression fierce, “you must always live.”

Sansa blinks up at him, an incredulous scoff falling from her lips. When his expression doesn’t change, she sighs and leans into his touch.

“Yes, my King,” she makes a promise she can’t possibly keep, but it must appease him because the tension in his body lessens somewhat.

Still cupping her face, he leans forward and drags her mouth to his. His kiss is unbearably soft and for a moment, they’re still, mouths connected, breathing through their noses. It’s tender, different from the explosive passion that’s been between them lately, but when they break apart, his eyes are darker nonetheless.

“I think Catelyn is going to look like her,” she whispers after a beat, gaze flickering to Lyanna’s statue again.

Jon’s mouth twitches beneath his beard.

“I think I’d like that.”

She thinks that’s an understatement. She remembers the first thing he’d said when he came into her birthing chamber and held his daughter for the first time.

 _“Black hair,”_ he’d breathed, gently rocking her and staring down in awe until she opened her eyes and he’d whispered, almost to himself, _“Tully blue”_

The relief in his voice had been palpable and Sansa had wanted to cry.

Didn’t he know it didn’t matter? She would have loved Catelyn had she come screaming into the world with hair as white as snow, eyes piercing violet – and so would he.

He lets her go, turning back to the statues.

Sansa considers him for a moment, this brave and brilliant man, and decides it’s time for her to divulge her secret, the thing she’s known since the day she stared down at her chamber pot and saw the lemon cakes she loved.

“I think the Tully colouring is a beautiful thing,” she says, “perhaps this one will have red hair and stormy grey eyes.”

Jon’s lips twitch again before the penny drops. Slowly, he turns to face her, his expression stunned and deadly serious.

“This one…?”

Sansa purses her lips, but she can’t stop the blinding smile that breaks through. 

She takes his hand and softly places it over her stomach.

His eyes flit from their hands to her gaze and back again – and she’s never seen him smile like that before.

“I’m with child.” 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I was spoiling you with all the fluff lately... that ain't my style ;) get ready for the next rollercoaster!

News of Sansa’s pregnancy spreads like wildfire.

The castle speaks in hushed whispers, excited murmurings about the new prince or princess bouncing off the walls.

Not everyone is excited, some of the Northern Lords and free folk still suspicious, and Jon is wary of Lord Baelish most of all.

“I don’t trust him. I never have,” he says one evening while they sit by the fire. Catelyn stirs in his lap, her eyelids fluttering as she battles against sleep.

Ignoring his words for a moment, Sansa watches her child with a small smile tugging at her lips.

 _“I’m not tired, Papa,”_ she’d said stubbornly, refusing to return to her own chambers, refusing to let him go.

Since his return, she’s been reluctant to let him out of her sight, always clinging to his leg, always wanting him near her. It stings in Sansa’s chest a little, the connection between them. For years, she was jealous of it. The way the little girl would hang off his every word, how just his touch, just his _look,_ could calm her.

Now, she loves it.

She loves how devoted he is to her, how he would rip the world apart just to get to her.

She gingerly touches her hand to her still-flat stomach and hopes this child will know how lucky it is.

“We shouldn’t speak of these things in-front of Catelyn,” she says, standing up and making her way over to his chair. She extends her arms and beckons for her.

Catelyn closes her already hooded eyes, turning away and burying her face in Jon’s chest.

It rumbles beneath her as he fights back a laugh.

“Come,” Sansa orders, her brows furrowing, unimpressed.

Catelyn lets out a muffled grunt as Jon’s fingers tangle in her curls, holding her to him.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, slowly standing, still clutching her to his chest as she furls her legs around his waist, “she can sleep here.”

Sansa rolls her eyes as he carries their child to his bed, but her lips twitch against her permission.

“She plays you like a fiddle,” she shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest as he untangles Catelyn’s limbs from his body and lays her down.

She’s asleep before she even hits the furs and he leans down, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

He doesn’t argue, turning to her with a soft shrug, then he’s sitting by her side again at the fireplace.

“I want him gone, Sansa,” he cuts to the chase, a fierce glint to his eye.

“What?” She gapes at him, stunned.

She knows he’s never been Littlefinger’s biggest fan, not since she told him she has him to thank for gifting her to the Boltons, but he’s never so explicitly ordered him banished.

“You heard me,” he says, looking at her, and his brows are furrowed, “I saw the way he looked at you when he gave his congratulations. The way he touched your stomach.”

She sighs, exasperated.

“You’re jealous?”

His lips twitch into a grimace under his beard.

“It’s not about that. He looked… calculating,” at her expression, he adds, “more so than usual.”

“I know how to handle Petyr Baelish. You don’t have to worry.”

“I do worry,” he fires back, voice huskier than usual, “these are challenging times, Sansa. Our position at home and down South is fraught at best. We don’t have enough men and the men we do have don’t trust us completely. We have a dragon we have no idea what to do with – and one more flying around unaccounted for. And now you’re carrying my child. I don’t want anyone around you that I don’t trust.”

His expression is as sullen as always, the fire casting hollowy shadows under his eyes and in all the right places.

“These _are_ challenging times,” Sansa agrees quietly, eager not to wake Catelyn, “which is why we can’t afford to make any more enemies. He’s just got back from the Vale, how will it look if we send him away already? I prefer to have him in my sight. If we push him towards Cersei, he would make a dangerous enemy. And besides... we owe him.”

Jon’s frown deepens at that.

“I am a King,” he murmurs, “I don’t owe him anything.”

Sansa fights to roll her eyes at his characteristic stubbornness.

“We couldn’t have won back Winterfell without the Knights of the Vale. You know that, Jon.”

“That was years ago,” the scowl remains etched on his face, “we’ve given it up and won it back since then.”

His words sting in her chest.

It feels like a dig.

“Are you going to hold that against me forever?” she asks quietly.

“The point is…” he doesn't answer the question, “…Cersei is more dangerous than ever. She’ll be looking for revenge, for ways to hurt us. She’s stronger than us right now… and Baelish has always followed the stronger side.”

Sansa’s expression hardens then, determined not to be overruled. Jon smells weakness like blood in the water.

“Baelish has my cousin wrapped around his finger. Robin _listens_ to him. If we make an enemy of him… if we lose the Knights of the Vale… we truly will have no chance when Cersei attacks us. We cannot afford to alienate the little men we have. I _know_ Littlefinger, Jon. Much better than you do. I know how he works, how he operates. You didn’t listen to me about Ramsay. Listen to me now.”

He wears a matching expression, his body tense like the string of a bow, and he turns his face away from her.

It’s silent for a moment before he breaks it.

“Alright. We’ll do it your way.”

He speaks quietly, his voice a low murmur, and his words surprise her.

“Really?”

“Really,” his expression is serious again, “Baelish can stay.”

“Mama, mama!” Sansa smiles as Catelyn runs towards her, practically crashing into her with surprising force.

Scooping her up, she places her on her hip.

“Careful, princess!” Brienne is racing after her, her armour weighing her down. When she reaches them, she looks serious and apologetic and her cheeks tinge pink at being outraced by a five-year-old.

“You must be careful,” she huffs again, her chest rising and falling, “due to your mother’s condition.”

“It’s quite alright, Brienne,” Sansa fights the urge to roll her eyes. Her baby isn’t yet the size of a walnut, but already everyone treats her like a fragile doll. Jon most of all, “isn’t it time for your training with Pod?”

Brienne gives a short nod, her hand resting on the sword at her hip. She’s been training Pod for some weeks now, working with him every day in the courtyard just after breakfast. Sansa feels a twinge of guilt at how she’s clearly been running after Catelyn all morning instead.

“No matter, your Grace,” Brienne insists, “Podrick can wait.”

“Nonsense,” Sansa bounces Catelyn on her hip, “You must go. You are dismissed.”

She tips her head with a smile and Brienne hesitates for only a moment before she’s giving another short nod. Sansa watches her leave with an amused smile curling her lips.

“Sorry, Mama,” Catelyn murmurs after a beat, poking her flat stomach, “I forgot. Will it be a boy or a girl?”

“Which would you prefer?”

She seems to ponder for a moment.

“A girl, I think,” she decides eventually, “so we can be like you and Aunt Arya.”

The mention of her little sister causes a slight tug in Sansa's chest. She hasn’t seen her in so long; it’s been nigh on a year since her last visit. She hopes she’ll return from her travels soon, knows that for as much as she misses her, Jon misses her more.

Catelyn has always been enamoured with her too and Sansa sees her in her daughter every day, in how clever and headstrong she is.

“You wouldn’t like a little brother?”

Catelyn considers it for a moment, her expression very serious.

“Maybe,” she says, “if he was strong like Papa.”

“Strong like Papa,” Sansa repeats with a nod, her lips twitching.

“But less moody.” Catelyn adds after a beat.

Sansa laughs, loud and carefree.

“Alright then,” she says, “now what were you rushing over to me for?”

Catelyn’s eyes light up in recognition, like she has just remembered.

“Uncle Sam and Aunt Gilly are getting married!” she gushes happily.

Sansa’s eyes widen.

“What wonderful news!” she says, “I must go give my congratulations.”

As though beckoned by the sound of her voice, Lord Baelish suddenly turns the corner, pausing when he notices them.

“Your Grace,” he gives a smooth bow, “Princess.”

“Lord Baelish,” Sansa nods in reply, “I was just about to go and congratulate Sam and Gilly, have you heard?”

Littlefinger smiles and it almost looks sincere.

“I have. Most happy news.”

Sansa begins to walk towards Gilly’s chambers when Catelyn shifts.

“No! I want to go play,” she pouts, shuffling down her body. Sansa helps put her down, ruffling her curls. She's about to protest when Lord Baelish speaks.

“I can escort the Princess back to her chambers,” he offers lightly, his hands clasped behind his back. 

Sansa hesitates for a moment before Catelyn is back to pouting and complaining. Excited for her friends and aware that she has often left Catelyn in Baelish’s care in the past, she gives a small nod.

“Alright,” she ruffles the little girl’s hair again, “Go with Lord Baelish, little one. Make sure to behave yourself.”

“I will, Mama!” Catelyn insists happily, rushing over to Littlefinger with a skip in her step.

Baelish smiles and Sansa walks towards Gilly’s chambers, thinking nothing of it.

When Sansa finds Jon in the courtyard a few hours later, she’s glowing with happiness.

She watches him spar with some of the younger lords, watches him teach them how to hold their sword, how to fight, how to move. She respects that about him, how even as a King, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, not afraid to bleed.

He soon notices her, patting the young boys on the back and dismissing them for the day.

“Everything alright?” he asks, somewhat breathless, as she approaches him. She doesn’t miss the way his eyes almost imperceptibly flicker to her stomach, and she watches the muscles under his shirt flex as he rolls his shoulders, sheathing his sword.

“Everything’s fine,” she says, “Great, even. I was just speaking with Gilly, have you heard?”

He nods, running a hand through his loose curls.

“Aye, Sam asked my advice on how to do it,” he says and his lips twitch under his beard.

“ _Your_ advice?” her mouth blurts it out without her permission, but he doesn’t look offended, “I don’t believe I even received a proper proposal, did I?”

“Not in the traditional sense,” he admits, his mouth lifting at one corner, “never have been one for grand declarations.”

 _An understatement if I’ve ever heard one,_ Sansa thinks.

“What did you advise?”

“I advised I’m not a bloody poet,” he shrugs, “just said he should tell her he loves her and… well, you know…”

 _You haven’t even told_ me _that,_ she thinks sourly.

Sansa nods regardless, expression softening.

“I know.”

The words seem to take on a different meaning, the atmosphere thinning, and he opens his mouth to say something when chaos erupts around them.

Brienne is running towards them, eyes frantic and wild.

“Your Grace…” she pants.

Sansa’s stomach knots at the look on her face.

“What is it?”

“It’s the princess,” she swallows and Jon takes a step forward, expression suddenly deadly serious, body tense, “she’s gone.”

Sansa’s stomach drops.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” he asks lowly, dangerously, his voice practically a growl.

“She’s not in her chambers, we’ve been searching everywhere… and–”

Brienne pauses, a tortured expression flickering over her face.

“And what?” Sansa snaps, bordering on hysterical.

“We can’t find Lord Baelish either.”

It feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach and suddenly, Sansa can’t breathe.

Jon pauses for just a moment before the King in him seems to snap into action. He looks calm, collected, but she can see through the cracks to the fear beneath. Capturing the attention of the guards around him, he gives his orders.

“Seal the gates. Block the ports, the bridges, all the roads South. Call in every favour I’m owed. Rip the Seven Kingdoms apart if you have to. Find her.”

He turns, growling another order to the stable-boy.

“Fetch my horse,” he’s joining them, leading the hunt, “he won’t get past the Twins.”

Breath caught in her chest, Sansa grabs his arm.

Her eyes and throat burn and she can’t see, can’t even _think_.

“Jon…” she chokes out.

He turns and she almost recoils at the wild look in his eye.

“If anything happens to her…” he starts, voice dark and low and dangerous, “I will never forgive you.”

She lets go as though he’s burned her.

And then he’s gone.


	20. Chapter 20

“Wait!” Sam interrupts them before Jon can mount his horse, before Sansa can move at all.

Jon turns and his body is tense, thrumming with barely restrained anger and fear. He doesn’t reply, but his expression demands urgency.

“A raven,” Sam swallows nervously, “from Kings Landing.”

Sansa’s standing closer to him and she snatches it from his hands. Her stomach knots with dread at the ruby Lion branded across the seal and she tears it open. 

Jon takes a step forward, brows furrowed, as her eyes fly wildly across the page.

_To the bastard King in the North and his traitorous whore Queen,_

_If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering where your little wolf is. I imagine you’re quite besides yourself with grief. Well… we wouldn’t want that, would we?_

_Lord Baelish is bringing her to me. For leverage, if you will. It’s not the most original plan, I’ll admit, but I’m afraid you’ve forced my hand and I’m rather out of ingenious ideas. You only have yourselves to blame, but I’m sure you know that. What did I tell you, little bird, all those years ago? The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy. Littlefinger’s a slimy bastard… and I suppose your bark held too little bite. I thought I taught you better than that._

_As for you, King in the North, you sealed your fate the day you journeyed North with the Targaryen whore. Bend the knee once more. Give up your traitorous claim to the North and I’ll let you live. I’ll let your little girl live. This can all end. I have no interest in ever returning to that barbaric, stinking wasteland you call home. You may live out the rest of your days as Warden and Lady of the North._

_Refuse me… and the Young Wolf will meet the same fate as the one who first held that name._

_I await your response. I trust you will make the right decision._

_After-all, Jon, Sansa… what good is power if you cannot protect the ones you love?_

_Signed Cersei of the House Lannister, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms._

Sansa stares at the page, as though she can will the words away, burn the ink off straight the parchment. She scrunches it in her hand as she wordlessly passes it to Jon.

His darkened eyes flit across the page just as quickly as hers had, and she watches his jaw tighten with every word.

“I want my best men,” he says quietly, “gather them now. We can’t waste any more time.”

He turns to leave and Sansa grabs his arm.

He pauses, his gaze flickering from her hand to her eyes and back again. His jaw is still clenched tight, his muscles tense, and she doesn’t let go even as a steward throws his furs around his shoulders.

“I’m coming,” she says – and she’s not asking.

He shakes his head emphatically, clipping his cloak and readjusting the pelts. 

“No, you’re not,” he bites out, “I need you here. I need you safe.”

If his words are supposed to appease her, they have the opposite effect. Red hot anger flares in her gut and she lets him go as though she’s disgusted with him.

“You don’t get to throw this in my face, to say you’ll never forgive me,” she catches something soft flicker over his face, something akin to guilt, “you don’t get to make a comment like that, to _blame_ me like that, and then force me to stay here, powerless and useless.”

“Sansa…” he sighs her name, some of the tension dissolving from his body as he takes a step towards her.

“No,” she takes a step back, “this is _not_ my fault. This was _Baelish._ He did this.”

“I know,” he says quickly, “I’m sorry, Sansa. I shouldn’t have said that. I-”

 _I’m her father and I was terrified. I was angry. I was worried,_ she sees it all on the tip of his tongue, but she refuses to let him say any more. Her anger still spiked, she doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want his excuses, tired of being the victim, tired of being blamed for everything he can’t handle.

“I’m not leaving her. I’m coming,” she brushes past him, feeling cold.

He opens his mouth to speak again but she’s deaf to it all.

“And when this is all over…” she starts quietly, her gaze snapping to his, deadly serious, “perhaps it is _you_ who will need to beg _my_ forgiveness.”

Sansa rides silently beside him, her stomach churning.

More than once, she feels like she needs to stop, to dismount and empty her stomach in a nearby patch of dirt, but she forces herself to continue, to keep her focus.

“What I should have said…” he breaks their uneasy silence, keeping his gaze straight ahead, “…is that I’ll never forgive _myself_.”

Sansa’s hands tighten around her reigns as she kicks the horse on, clicking her tongue to make it trot faster.

“Stop being a martyr,” she says, “this was Baelish and Cersei. Not us. I was wrong to trust him, to think that the good in him may outweigh the bad after all these years in our service. He saved me from Kings Landing, helped us win back Winterfell… but he’s still the man who gave me to the Boltons. But you were wrong too, Jon. If we’d have banished him, this would have happened anyway. He’s a liar and a traitor.”

“I’ll have his head,” Jon promises, that Northern brogue a lower tone than usual, eyes glinting something fierce.

Sansa glances at him for a moment before she turns her gaze back to the road, very much aware that Baelish must only have a few hours on them.

“We have to find our baby first.”

She says – and then kicks the horse into a gallop.

She doesn’t know how long they’ve been travelling, has lost count of the hours, but eventually her horse drags its hooves and her eyes begin to droop.

Jon hides it better, jaw clenched tight and face impassive as they journey down the Kingsroad, but she can see the tiredness etched on his features. The men around them, the ones they’ve chosen to travel with them whilst the others split, covering all the other roads and ports South, begin to falter too.

They haven’t gotten anywhere, Littlefinger nowhere to be found, and with every passing hour, Sansa’s stomach knots tighter.

Above her, a dragon gives an almighty cry.

“Is that…” _ours,_ the word sticks on Sansa’s tongue. The creatures are not of the North, symbolic of the Targaryen blood she loathes, and she’s still reluctant to embrace them.

Jon tips his head to the sky, watching the creature paint streaks of red across the setting sun.

“I think so,” he says, not sounding sure, “it’s Drogon. Perhaps he’s helping.”

The dragon whines, as though affirming the thought.

Sansa nods, but doesn’t speak. She won't argue. They need all the help they can get.

Eventually, standing tall and imposing on the horizon, they reach Moat Cailin.

“We should stop,” Sansa says, “the men are exhausted, we’re exhausted. Baelish would’ve had to have stopped as well.”

Jon glances at her but he looks reluctant.

“I don’t want to lose any time.”

“We can’t ride for days on end with no rest, Jon. Collapsing from fatigue and being too weak to fight isn’t going to help Catelyn.”

Whether he agrees with her or he’s too drained to argue, he hesitates for a moment before giving a short nod.

“We’ll find shelter here,” he says, “just for a few hours.”

Much of Moat Cailin still lays in ruins; long gone are the days of it being a great stronghold with twenty towers, a wooden keep and a great curtain wall that could rival that of Winterfell’s. But there are four walls and a roof, and enough shelter to get them through the night.

They stop – and Drogon flies on.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Sansa chides when they’re inside, tired but warm, “not boring a hole in the ground.”

He’s been pacing up and down for fifteen minutes, running his fingers through his hair, and she winces at the way he tugs and punishes the curls.

“I can’t,” he says, somewhat manic, “I _can’t_. We have to go, we shouldn’t stop. He’s out there, Sansa. He’s got his filthy hands on our child.”

His voice is practically a snarl, low and uncharacteristically rattled.

She’s only seen him like this a handful of times, wild and distressed, and never outside of battle.

“I know,” she says calmly, “I know all of that. There’s nothing you could say that would make me feel any worse than I already do.”

She knows she couldn’t have predicted what Lord Baelish was going to do. Jon’s plan to send him away would have been no use either. They had been doomed to lose either way.

She knows that she could be forgiven for thinking that after six years with them, there was some _measure_ of him that could be trusted. But Baelish is Baelish, manipulative and evil, and though _logically_ she knows this, she still won’t forgive herself.

Unmistakable regret flashes over Jon’s face and he turns to her.

“I’m not trying to make you feel worse,” he says, running a tired hand over his face, “I don’t blame you, Sansa. You couldn’t have known he would do what he did – and banishing him would’ve pushed him towards Cersei anyway. I understand why you didn’t want to send him away, just as I understand now why you bent the knee.”

Sansa’s chest tightens – and he’s never said that before.

“Since when?”

“Since we have our Kingdom back and our people are safe.”

Sansa stares at him for a beat before she stands with a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. 

She’s still angry, still hurt, both emotions overriding anything softer.

“You’ve been cruel. I know I have too. But _gods,_ Jon, I tried my best. Can you honestly say the same?” she doesn’t let him answer, “you know, over the years… I thought about leaving you.”

Her voice is cold but honest, and she doesn’t miss the flicker of hurt that passes over his features.

He takes a step forward, dark eyes shining.

“And yet, you did not leave,” he says, his voice a low murmur. The words hang between them significantly for a moment before he continues, “I shouldn’t have said what I did, I know that. I lashed out because I was angry and scared and I’m sorry. I just – I’m her _father._ I love her and I—”

He pauses, the words caught in his throat. It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room, not something exciting, but something paralysing, and all Sansa can do is stare.

He takes another step forward and his eyes burn into her and for a moment, the whole world stutters to a halt.

“I love you,” he whispers and it’s like she can breathe again, “I should have said it before.”

Her eyes and throat burn and she stubbornly blinks back hot tears. It’s been so long since she’s heard those words, and never from him. It feels wrong to only be saying them now, when they’re tired and broken and scared. It’s not traditional, but then, they’ve never been traditional. They’ve never been normal.

It doesn’t fix things, doesn’t mend them, but it’s a start – and when he later reaches for her, she doesn’t push him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some of you noticed I said I was taking a break from this story. The negative (and sometimes hurtful/hateful) comments were definitely beginning to wear me down. I get that everyone is entitled to an opinion and you guys are passionate. I just ask for you to keep it civil and respect that a lot of my time and effort goes into this (for no reward other than I enjoy it). I've decided to keep going mainly because I want to get it finished, feel like I owe these two an ending after all the angst I've put them through! and some of you are enjoying it. Thank you x 
> 
> Oh and also please forgive any geographical errors, I'm not sure how long it would take to ride down the Kingsroad, to Moat Caitlin, to KL etc so maybe allow a little artistic license there? :)


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the lovely messages guys <3

Jon doesn’t tell her he loves her again, no matter how often she wills the words to fall from his lips.

He’s a man on a mission, his jaw clenched tight, those stormy eyes so dark they’re almost black, as they race down the Kingsroad. She feels nothing as they ride through Greywater Watch and everything as they pass the Twins.

Her eyes flicker to him then, but he’s impassive, unreachable to her.

She wonders if he feels what she feels; there’s a haunting sensation, a chill whistling through her bones. She feels her mother and Robb, feels their ghosts, and she has to close her eyes against the horrible visions that sear behind them. She sees the traitor Roose Bolton thrust his knife into her beloved brother’s chest, sees her mother clutch at a throat gushing crimson, sees a sister and a niece or nephew she never even got to meet bleed out on the cold stone floor.

Arya avenged the Red Wedding – but the North remembers.

 _She_ remembers.

She thinks of her mother then, feeling a fist around her heart. She knows what it means now, to be a mother. To love someone so much you have no control. To love them more than you love yourself, to be willing to lay down your life for them.

She thinks of how it must have felt to watch Robb die. She remembers how close they were back in Winterfell. From the day he was born, he was for their mother as Jon was for Ned. He’d cling to her skirts when he was a boy, hold her just as close, just as fierce, when he became a man. He was the only one who ever chastised her for her treatment of their brother, telling her she was wrong to punish him simply for the crime of being born.

 _Simply because father laid down and fucked some tavern whore_ , she’d hear him spit to Theon. 

( _h_ _e never knew,_ she thinks with despair. He never found out that Jon is a Targaryen. He died thinking his father had dishonoured the woman he loved the most).

Sometimes she thinks her mother was close to listening.

He was her brave boy, she’d said, her first born.

Sansa wonders if her mother died the moment Robb did.

She kicks her horse on – and the sickness that rises from the back of her throat has nothing to do with the babe growing in her belly. 

“Nothing, your Grace,” an exhausted knight admits when they intercept at the Green Fork, “we've found nothing. We’ve searched from Widow’s Watch to White Harbour. He can’t have taken that route.”

Sansa watches Jon’s eyes close briefly, his temper like a rubber band pulled tight and about to snap.

“He’s not a god,” he snarls out eventually, his hands clutching his reigns so tight Sansa can hear the whine of his gloves as the leather is stretched tight, “he can’t have just disappeared.”

“Perhaps the men patrolling Barrowlands and the Rills will have had better luck,” the knight tries, “they are devoted. Northerners look after their own. We will find her, your Grace.”

Jon looks away, unmistakable pain etched on his features, and Sansa is the one who must award the man his grateful smile.

“The crown thanks you, my lord,” she tips her head, “we greatly appreciate your efforts and whoever finds the Princess will be rewarded in kind. I know the Northerners are not motivated by money or greed, but still, please be sure to spread the word.” 

“Aye, my Queen,” another nod and the knight is off, the hooves of his horse kicking up showers of dirt as he goes.

It’s silent for a moment, save for the flapping of Drogon’s impressive wings ahead, and Sansa turns to her husband.

“Where to next?”

“The Eyrie,” he answers without hesitation, “Littlefinger won’t be stupid enough as to stay there, he knows we’ll come looking, but we need to regroup again and seek council with your cousin.”

Sansa shifts awkwardly, feeling a discomfort that has little to do with the hard saddle aching her back.

“Robin has been manipulated by Baelish more so than anyone else,” she says quietly, “groomed from an early age to see him as a father. He may not listen to us.”

Jon clicks his tongue, a slight tip to his head.

“Perhaps. But if he was manipulated before, he can be manipulated again.”

A shadow passes over his face, something dark and sinister, and Sansa catches a glimpse of the dangerous side of her husband. The bastard her mother always warned her about, the one who will lie and cheat and scheme to get what he wants. 

Sometimes she forgets her husband is a killer – and there’s no-one he would more gladly kill for than Catelyn.

“Uncle Petyr couldn’t have taken little Catelyn,” Robin Arryn shakes his head stubbornly, sprawled out on his makeshift throne, “it is simply impossible.”

Sansa feels Jon bristle beside her, his hands curling into fists.

She steps closer, subtly reaching for him and tugging at his hand until she can wriggle a finger inside. His jaw doesn’t loosen, but his fist does and she slips her hand in his. He’s warm where she is cold and for _once,_ she feels him relax at her touch.

“Dear cousin,” she starts, voice honey sweet, “I understand this must come as a horrible shock, for I know how you love Petyr. He has been good to you, as he has been good to me,”

Jon tenses again, his hand pulling back slightly, but Sansa keeps her iron-tight grip around his fingers, imploring him to read between the lines, to understand what she’s doing.

“He wouldn’t do it. I just know so.”

“I have the letter from Cersei right here,” Jon’s voice is smooth and collected but Sansa can detect the hints of fury underneath, “it is written in black and white. Petyr Baelish took our daughter. The Princess of Winterfell, your _kin_.”

“The Lannister Queen is a liar, we all know this.”

“Robin,” Jon sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, choosing to forgo his title, “we do not have time for this. Have you heard from Littlefinger or not?”

The young lord bristles under Jon’s tone and Sansa’s stomach knots.

“I have not,” Robin says petulantly, a slight pout to his lips. He stands, making his way down the stone steps towards them, and his movements are slow and haughty. He’s putting on a show the King and Queen have little patience for.

“Well then, will you permit us to borrow some of your men? We need all the help we can get in finding her.”

Jon’s request is measured and he lets go of his wife so he can clasp his hands behind his back. Sansa quirks a brow, getting the impression that this is necessary or else he’s going to strangle something. Or someone. 

Robin crosses his arms over his chest, a brief look of childish annoyance flashing over his features. He doesn’t look angry or confused, just bored, and it’s this that smarts the most.

“The Knights of the Vale stay here where they are safe, where they can protect their Lord.”

“Robin, please…” Sansa takes a step forward, “Catelyn is everything to us. We really need your help.”

“My word is final,” he waves a dismissive hand, a smirk pulling at his lips. Infuriated, Sansa realises he’s _enjoying_ this.

Jon takes a step forward then and she reaches for him, desperate to pull him back before he makes the situation worse.

“Rob--”

“ _Gods,_ you’re dull!” Robin exclaims, lifting his hands dramatically only to let them slap against his sides again, “don’t you understand even if I could help, I wouldn’t? I won back your stupid Winterfell for you, now you think you can ask anything of me? I don’t think so. The Vale has always protected its own and Uncle Petyr has always protected me. I don’t believe you. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about Catelyn. You’re boring me. Maybe you should’ve kept the little bitch on a leash or something--”

Everything moves too quickly for Sansa then.

One moment she’s staring despairingly at the young Lord and the next her husband’s hand is wrapped around his throat.

“Do you understand how easy it would be to snap your neck?” Jon’s voice is a growl, Northern accent lower and rougher than she’s heard it in years, “you insolent little shit.”

“Jon, no--” she rushes to them, getting there before Robin’s guards, and curls her hand around his wrist. But her husband is a warrior, and he doesn’t budge, “do you honestly think this will help?”

“Aye, it’s helping.” His top lip curls.

“Jon--”

Two of Robin’s guards manage to pull him off and Sansa takes his face in her hands, imploring for that red mist to lift, for him to come back to her.

“You can’t talk to me like that!” Robin is screeching, “I am Lord of the Eyrie and Protector of the Vale!”

“You are a _child_ ,” Jon spits, “a child who knows nothing of life or battle or love. You have no honour.”

“Get your King under control,” one of the guards growls to Sansa, torn between protecting their lord and bringing down the wrath of the entire North by hurting its King.

Jon brushes her off, standing before Robin. The young boy visibly cowers, frightened, as fury vibrates off the King in noticeable waves.

“You best pray you never need my help. My armies will stay where they are. If I ever see a map of the North, I will be blind to everything east of the Twins.”

“Jon--”

“Don’t call me that,” he turns on his heel, “don’t speak to me at all.”

And then he’s marching out of the hall.

Sansa throws her cousin one more forlorn glance.

“Cousin--”

He looks small and broken, like the motherless, rootless boy he is, but Sansa is deaf to his pleas.

She follows her husband.

Sansa’s not sure what to expect for the rest of their time at the Eyrie. Robin doesn’t immediately send them away, wounded but confused, sheepishly listening to his advisors.

 _A family tiff,_ they coo, waving dismissive hands, fear concealed behind sharp, shrewd eyes. _Nothing to worry about._

If the Seven Kingdoms are about to be thrust into war, the Vale could do without the wrath of its Northern King.

The _last_ thing she expects is to be grabbed while she walks down a hallway, thrust into a nearby chamber and against the wall. She’s about to scream, to protest, when a hot mouth covers hers.

She relaxes almost immediately, knowing his kiss. It’s been branded on her skin for years.

Jon’s hands curl around her slim wrists, anchoring them next to her head. She arches against him and he swallows her gasp of surprise, tongue sweeping into her mouth.

“Jon,” she inhales sharply when he breaks away from her mouth, planting hot, open mouthed kisses down the length of her neck. His hands go to the bust of her dress and he tugs, the laces coming apart easily under his nimble fingers.

Then his unbearably hot mouth is sucking marks into the skin at the top of her breasts and it feels like she’s burning from the inside out.

“Jon,” she says his name again, harder this time, bringing him back to reality.

He lifts his head and her breath catches in her throat. His eyes are black, more wolf than man.

“I need you,” he says, voice low and husky and dangerous.

He kisses her again, mouth slanting desperately over hers, and she fights against surrendering. He plays her body like an instrument he mastered years ago, hands anchoring themselves at her waist.

“Now?” she moans, stunned.

 _Now,_ when they’re broken and tired and Catelyn is still missing and they don’t even know where to look. _Now,_ when the confession that he loves her – _finally_ – still burns at the back of her mind but still, everything, _everything_ is wrong.

He pulls back to look at her and she feels her cheeks radiate under his stare.

“Aye,” he murmurs, “now.”

He leans in again and she feels the bruise of his kiss, his teeth scraping her bottom lip. It’s rough, yet she can feel the softness behind the brutality, the desperation, the hurt. He slides his tongue over hers and she tastes the faint metallic tang of blood.

“Now,” he elaborates into her neck, voice deep and gruff and so perfectly Northern, “because I don’t want to waste any more time. Because you’re the only thing that’s right. _Now_ – because I’m in love with you and want nothing more than for you to love me in return.”

Sansa’s chest tightens and she pulls him back by the nape of his neck, fingers tugging at his black curls.

He tilts his head back and there’s a flash of his white teeth as he hisses through them.

“You still haven’t said it back,” he points out, an eyebrow perfectly arched, “now who’s afraid?” 

Sansa’s cheeks burn in equal parts desire and anger.

“Maybe I don’t want to give you that power. Maybe I'm not even sure. After-all, you’ve known it and I haven’t.”

“Aye, I’ve known it,” they don’t say Ygritte’s name but her presence is palpable all the same, “when she died in my arms, I thought I’d be angry and empty and cold forever. That’s how much I needed her. And yet… despite all this… if it’s possible, I think I love you even more.”

She feels like she’s burning, everything pulsing too hot, too bright.

“Jon…”

“And what do _you_ want?” he asks, one hand at her waist and the other at her throat, his palm gently resting over her breast. She’s sure he can feel the rapid beating of her heart.

“I want you to let me in. I want to be allowed to love you,” she says, “because you’re right. I do.”

“You do what?”

She rolls her eyes and his smile is devastating.

“I love you.”

He leans his forehead against hers.

“Say it again."

She can’t – because there’s a shout from outside, an order to open the gates. 

Sansa rushes into the hall, Jon hot on her heels.

“What is it?” she asks hurriedly, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at Robin’s dumfounded expression. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly and gives a small shrug.

The sky burns red outside, slivers of crimson light escaping through the cracks as the large stone doors open.

Sansa’s breath catches in her throat at the sight of what comes running through the door.

“Mama!” Catelyn shrieks happily, running faster than she ever has before, launching herself into her mother’s arms.

Sansa chokes on a sob, falling to her knees and embracing her fiercely.

Jon’s beside them in a flash, crouching on his haunches as Catelyn buries herself in his furs next.

“Papa,” she murmurs softly and Jon doesn’t open his eyes even as he stands, clutching her to his body.

His jaw is clenched tight and his shoulders fold like worn parchment. He softly sways, like they’re dancing, and he looks like he’s in pain.

Sansa’s eyes and throat burn as he puts his other arm around her.

_Home._

The moment breaks when the sound of hooves click on the stone floor.

Their eyes lift to the entrance where a bound and unconscious Petyr Baelish slides off the saddle of a horse as white as winter’s snow.

He lands with a thump on the cold floor and there, standing with her foot placed casually on his back, stands Arya Stark.


	22. Chapter 22

As the sun begins to set over the Eyrie, Petyr Baelish is brought back to the Great Keep to face the King's justice.

As they ride, Sansa's tired eyes flicker over Arya's form.

When she was a girl, she used to wonder at how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. She'd insist Arya must secretly be a bastard like Jon. She even looked like him, with her long face and the brown hair of the Starks and nothing of their lady mother in her. She remembers telling her father there must have been a mistake, that perhaps one of the fabled creatures of the wolfswood west of Winterfell had stolen her _real_ sister. Ned Stark had laughed, told her she had quite the imagination, and that Arya was indeed his true-born daughter, blood of their blood. Sansa considered him the most honourable man in the world and he had no reason to lie, so she believed him and that was that.

But still, when Arya threw on her soiled leathers or chased the butcher's boy around with a stick or threw her needlework down in disgust, Sansa would wish for a different sister. Perhaps someone sweet and delicate and kind like Princess Myrcella. Sansa thought she would have liked a sister like that.

But she was a child back then, dreaming of gallant, golden princes who didn't exist.

Now, as Arya rides along in-front with Jon by her side, Sansa thanks the gods, old and new, for her sister.

"Call yourself a hunter, brother," Arya laughs happily, her thick brows raised to her hairline.

It makes Sansa wince to hear him called as such, but that's what he's always been to her.

 _You're my brother,_ she'd said fiercely the day he told them who he was, sheltered under the heavy branches of the Weirwood tree, _you weren't my half brother then; you're not my cousin now._

While everything had changed for Sansa, nothing changed for her sister. So much so that the young girl initially balked at the idea of them marrying, her nose scrunching up in disgust.

 _"But how are you going to... lie with him?"_ she'd said like she couldn't think of anything more repulsive. Sansa had just shrugged, her mouth drawn into a tight line, but her skin prickled with the unsettling realization that lying with him would be very easy indeed.

Jon's mouth tips into a half-smirk as they race ahead, their horses faster than Sansa's. She kicks hers on, squeezing its middle and huffing a strand of red hair out of her face. Arya had always been better than her at riding, and it seems time hasn't changed a thing.

"Hold your tongue, little sister," she hears her husband tease, "save your energy. I wish to hear all about your journey when we are home."

 _Home,_ where Arya belongs - though she'll die before admitting it - and where it's cold and comforting and Bran is waiting for them.

They haven't been together in so long, a wolf always missing from their pack, and Sansa's chest warms at the thought of it.

It freezes to ice again when she remembers Petyr Baelish must be dealt with first.

Baelish is already bruised and battered by the time he's thrown into the kennels, the walls littered by claw marks and haunted by the ghosts of Ramsay's hounds.

He's left there to stew, dirty and exhausted and desperate, while the last of the Starks discuss how to deal with him.

It's just the four of them now, settled in the Great Hall, but Catelyn sleeps soundly in Arya's lap.

"I never wanted one of these," she says suddenly, her dark eyes focused on the bundle in her arms, "but now I think it wouldn't be so bad."

Sansa laughs and watches Jon's mouth twitch under his beard too.

"You'd make a fine mother, Arya," he says, "though I'm sure your child would be a wild little thing."

Arya smirks, seemingly delighted at the prospect.

"Well, we don't need any more perfumed Lords," she rolls her eyes, "we need more little Starks to fill Winterfell."

"We'd love that," Sansa insists, "and you could have it if you came home. You're the one who wanted to travel the world."

"I did - I do," Arya corrects herself, her brows pulling into a stubborn frown, "but that won't be forever. And different roads sometimes lead to the same castle."

She reminds them of Jon's words, spoken to her the day he left for the Night's Watch. They'd been so close, the closest of all the Starks really, and Sansa hadn't cared enough back then to be jealous. Jon's smile is melancholy as he no doubts remembers happier times, days when they were all together and two more Stark sons raced around the courtyard.

"It seems the road has already led you back to us," Bran speaks then, characteristically smooth and unaffected, "how _did_ you happen upon our niece?"

"I was visiting Westeros," she says, her voice slow and curiously guarded, "I'd been sailing around Naarth for the past few moons, planned to come here first, but I crossed Baelish pretty much as soon as I arrived at White Harbour."

"White Harbour?" Sansa's stomach knots, her mind trying to envisage places on a map, "right next to Moat Cailin. We were there. We must have been so close."

"We didn't know," Jon says smoothly, but guilt burns under Sansa's skin all the same.

"You said you planned to come here _first_ ," Bran picks up, "first before what?"

Arya pauses and Sansa watches curiously as her cheeks burst into flames, a pink tinge travelling from her neck to the tips of her ears.

"If you _must_ know..." she sniffs, stubborn and guarded and _Arya,_ "I was planning to travel to Storm's End."

Jon's grin is unmistakable then and Sansa's own lips purse into a tight line, struggling to contain her smile.

"I hadn't realized you had such an interest in impenetrable castles and the waters of Shipbreaker bay," Jon starts, amusement dancing behind his eyes, "pray tell, Arya, what could possibly be worth visiting in Storm's End?"

"What..." Sansa drawls, "or who?"

"Alright, alright," Arya rolls her eyes, cheeks still burning frustrated and pink, "I wanted to see Gendry. Happy now?"

"Exceedingly so," Jon says.

"That man adores you, Arya," Sansa says like her sister doesn't know, like she hasn't had him wrapped around her finger since the day they met, back when he was a little boy with a bastard's name and he knew - he just _knew_ \- she was no Arry, "and I know you love him too. He may not wait forever."

"A man who will not wait forever is not the man for me," Arya insists, nose upturned, "I'm not ready to be a wife. Maybe one day, sure. But not yet."

"Alright little sister," Jon smiles a soft smile of surrender, "we won't speak of it anymore. Instead, why don't you tell me more about how you found my daughter?"

Arya nods, seemingly relieved at the change of subject.

"It was at an inn just off White Harbour. Baelish must have been travelling down the White Knife to sail from there to Kings Landing, rather than taking the Kingsroad."

Jon sets his mouth in a grim line, his body tense, and Sansa wants to order him to relax, to throw his words back at him and tell him they had no way of knowing this. Instead, she keeps her focus on her sister as Arya continues.

"He had her covered in a cloak but I knew it was her. He tried to feed me some spiel about taking her to visit the Eyrie and Robin Arryn, but I knew you wouldn't let her leave Winterfell without you - especially not with him. Never trusted the fucker. Then, by chance or fate or whatever you want to call it, a few of your men happened to be passing through, looking for them, and that was that. They said you happened to be looking to the Eyrie next so I just hoped you were still there by the time I got to you."

"We almost weren't," Jon grumbles, "Robin Arryn is a petulant little shit."

"He's always been that way," Sansa murmurs, remembering her time with the Vale, back when she was a different girl whose hair was black and her skin unblemished by Ramsay's hands and Petyr Baelish still had a scrap of her trust, "if you knew what he did, that he'd kidnapped her, why didn't you kill him yourself?"

Arya shrugs and, with a warmth spreading through her, Sansa notices how her fingers are subtly brushing through Catelyn's unruly dark curls as the girl still sleeps in her lap.

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword," she murmurs quietly, "isn't that what father always said?"

Jon's mouth twitches solemnly as the heavy shadow of honour and duty passes over his face, and his smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"Aye, and swing it I shall," he stands, walking over to her and lifting Catelyn from her arms. She stirs and settles again at his murmured hush, and he leans down to place a gentle kiss on Arya's forehead, "thank you, Arya. We can never repay you."

"She's family," the young girl shrugs again, but she's clearly moved, "and we protect family."

Jon's mouth twists into an uneasy smile again.

"Come, Sansa," he beckons his wife softly, "let's put our daughter to bed."

Sansa gives her sister a tight embrace of her own, whispering her thanks, before she all too happily follows his command.

That cold winter when Robert Baratheon rode into Winterfell with his family and set the wheels in motion, Ned had told Sansa how the King teased him for the Stark melancholy, insisting that the Northerners were so prickly, they ought to have taken the hedgehog as their sigil. With a wistful smile, she remembers how horrified she had been, forcing her eyes to shine bright and smile so wide her cheeks hurt the next time she saw the crown Prince Joffrey.

When they were to be married someday, she would be Queen and her sons would rule from from the Wall to the mountains of Dorne. Sansa couldn't understand why the prospect made Ned's mouth twist bitterly, why he balked at the idea. Starks _were_ melancholy, she had thought with a grumble. Mournful and pensive and gruff. Why couldn't her father be more like Robert, she'd wondered? Funny and fat and happy.

Now, as her eyes drift over her husband to her left, over his long face and his dark hair half-tied back with a leather band, she thinks Ned Stark might not have sired him, but he is every inch his son. He never asked for the cup to be passed to him. It was all meant for Robb - a lady wife, Winterfell, everything - just as it was meant for Brandon, not her father, before him. Jon never asked to be a King, to be the father of Princesses.

And yet, the cup has passed, and he must drink from it all the same.

He takes a sip now, as Petyr Baelish stands before him.

"Lord Baelish, you stand accused of murder," he starts, voice strong and authoritative, "you stand accused of treason. You stand accused of kidnapping the daughter of the realm to give to our sworn enemy. How do you plead to these charges?"

Baelish stands still and strong, but Sansa watches the movement of his throat as he swallows dryly.

"Of the last charge, I am guilty," he admits to her surprise and she fights to keep her expression stoic and calm, even as her hands curl into fists under the table, "I made a grievous error, and I realise honour demands I must pay for it with my life. However, I must admit your Grace, I am confused regarding the other charges."

"What are you confused about?" Sansa bites out harshly, her nails carving moon-shaped crescents into her palm, "You killed our aunt Lysa and never faced justice for it. You pushed her out the moon door and watched her die."

"Before that, you conspired with her to murder Jon Arryn and then, you betrayed our father," Bran speaks then, spilling secrets Sansa hadn't even known, "you held a knife to his throat and told him he shouldn't have trusted you. I saw it all. Thanks to you, he was imprisoned and later executed on false charges of treason. You have orchestrated the entire conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters."

"Your Graces, I--"

"Enough, Baelish," Jon cuts him off, "From the Vale to Kings Landing to Winterfell, you have wormed your way through. Pitting sibling against sibling, King against King, Queen against Queen. But stealing Catelyn was your biggest mistake. Were you under the impression you would never be found, that I would allow you to live? Tell me, my Lord, what did you think?"

"I _thought_ you were a man of mercy," Baelish murmurs and he sounds desperate then, "everyone says so. Tales of your strength, your honour, are told all throughout the Seven Kingdoms. I made a mistake, it's true, but I'm begging you - don't do this. Have mercy, your Grace."

"Mercy?" Jon spits the word like venom, so rough it causes a shudder to pass through Sansa, "you took my girl."

Baelish bows his head.

The four words speak volumes, the conversation swiftly finished, and he tries Sansa next.

"Sansa, for the love I bear you... for the love I bore your mother... I implore you to reconsider."

"You love me?"

Baelish nods frantically, and Jon bristles beside her.

"I've known you since the time you were a girl," he tries to remind her, "I've always protected you. I've always loved you."

Sansa nods smoothly, as though considering this.

"And this is how you treat the ones you love?"

His mouth opens and closes and Sansa thinks he looks like a fish - a caught fish, thrashing desperately with no way to remove the hook from its mouth.

He falls to his knees at the same time as the King and Queen rise.

"Thank you for your many lessons, Lord Baelish," Sansa says, her voice even and composed, "I will never forget them."

Jon touches her waist as he moves past her, ordering the guards to seize him with a short nod. Baelish yells nonsensical curses, pleads sobs that fall on deaf ears, as the last of the Starks follow the guards outside. 

As soon as they step into the dark, the cold air lashes at Sansa like a whip. 

"Kneel, my Lord," Jon orders, voice low and dark. 

As Baelish's head is laid down on the chopping block, Jon softly takes the sword that's given to him and rests his hands upon it.

"Lord Petyr Baelish, here in sights of Gods and men, I sentence you to die. Would you speak a last word?" 

A strangled, grief-stricken sob is all they receive in reply - and then Jon swings the sword as promised.

The steel cuts through the air like soft butter, and the flap of a crow's wings pierces the silence. 

Sansa is still and she never looks away, even as blood sprays across her husband's face like warm rain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used some lines and recurring themes from both the books and the show in this one, hope you all liked it! Get ready for a chapter of smut next 🤫 ...


	23. Chapter 23

Sansa's struggling to perfect a hemming stitch, one of Jon's damaged cloaks draped over her knees, as Arya snorts a laugh from across the room.

"I can't believe you still torture yourself with that rubbish."

"I like it," Sansa says softly, threading the needle through and tugging on it, "it relaxes me."

"That's lucky," Arya rolls her shoulders, wincing as the tired muscles audibly click, "somehow I can't imagine Jon mending his own clothes."

Sansa's lips twitch at that, a small laugh falling from them.

"No, he would be lost without me."

She recognizes the words for their unintended depth, but carries on sewing nonetheless.

"What is it, a cloak?" Arya stretches her neck, curious eyes flitting over the garment until she finds the tiny direwolf emblazoned on the strap, "I like the wolf bit."

"That's what he said when I made it for him," Sansa smiles gently, "you two are so alike, it's absurd."

Arya's silent for a moment, but Sansa can feel the heat of her eyes on her.

"What?"

The younger girl shrugs, leaning back and crossing her legs on the chair.

"Something's changed," she starts, voice light but wistful and perceptive, "between you two."

"What do you mean?"

"You're different with each other," she continues, "just... the way you speak, the way you move. Gods, you could have turned the Great Keep to ice, you were so cold to each other. Now he listens to you, and I think I even saw him _smile_ once, and... he watches you. I doubt you know how much."

Sansa feels her cheeks burn, a strange heat gripping her chest.

"Our wedding was a transaction. You know better than anyone we were hardly close growing up."

"Strange. He was insufferably broody and miserable and you were an uptight prude. You were practically made for each other."

Sansa rolls her eyes, tossing a scrap of fabric at her sister in mock outrage.

"Even so, he was stubborn and cold and he scarcely listened to me," her chest aches at the memory of times when they were more distant, "and yet, in certain moments, I grew to like, admire and even love my husband. His sheer power, his strength, the calm air he carried with him... you're right, things are different now. Much has changed since your last visit, sister, and I believe love has finally flourished between us."

"It was always there, you dummy," Arya says, "just misguided and unable to grow due to your own stubbornness."

"It is not the only thing that's grown," her hand travels to her stomach then, softly cupping the tiny bump that's started to show there.

Arya's silent for a moment before her eyes widen. She stands, making her way over to her and crouching by her chair. She gently takes Jon's un-mended cloak from her sister's hands and places it on the floor beside them.

Her small hands go to Sansa's stomach, brushing over the fabric of her dress in awe.

"Congratulations, sister," she says softly, genuinely, "Gods, I wish mother and father were here."

Her voice is sadder than Sansa's heard it in years and the ache in her chest intensifies.

"Me too," she whispers, "but we have each other. Won't you stay a while, Arya? Return from Storm's End and help me raise this one to be as strong and wild as you are. After-all, you are practically my childrens' protector now."

It's said as a joke, a lighthearted yarn, and Arya's mouth twitches into a smirk.

"Only if you call it Arya."

Sansa rolls her eyes.

"What if it's a boy?"

"If the Gods be good, it won't be," the young girl laughs, "we both know boys are useless."

Sansa feels Jon before she sees him, a quiet presence by her door as she bathes.

"I know my father raised you better than to sneak up and gawk at a naked lady," she teases without turning around, leaning into the warm water and running her hand over her bent knee before covering her right calf with soap.

"I hadn't realised I was sneaking," he murmurs, "I was just about to announce my presence."

"And miss the show?"

She turns her head over her shoulder then, peeking at him from under wet lashes.

"A show, is it?" he quirks a brow at that, leaning casually against the door frame, legs crossed at the ankles and arms across his chest.

"Aye," she drawls, noticing the way his eyes darken at her use of his own vernacular, "your most favourite show."

His mouth lifts at once side and there's a hint of amusement in his voice when he says, "you sound sure of yourself."

"I am," she shrugs, turning her head back again to focus on the task at hand. She washes her legs, the right and then the left, all the while listening to his quiet breathing.

It's comforting, she thinks, just knowing he's there. There was a time she worried he wouldn't be, when he journeyed North to fight the dead. Her stomach twists at the realization that now Kings Landing is calling and in a handful of moons, a son may arrive, born while his father wars in the unfamiliar lands of the South.

She doesn't want to speak of such things anymore, doesn't want to think about just how desperately she's come to need him, so she speaks again.

"Where are my handmaidens?" she asks, eyes flitting around the empty room.

She hears him lean off the door frame and take a step towards her.

"I sent them away."

Her mouth twitches into a smirk as she leans back and rests both forearms on the edge of the copper bath, hands curling around the sides. Her red hair hangs loose, darkened and wet around her shoulders, and the damp ends curl over her nipples.

"So you can sneak in here and steal what you want without protestation?" her toes flex under the water and still, she doesn't turn around, "that's rather brutish."

He takes another step and she can feel the heat of him now, directly behind her. 

"How can I steal that which is freely given?"

Her eyes open, slightly narrowed, as she fights back her smile.

"Now who's sure of themselves?" she teases. She can't fight the urge to look at him then, turning her head upwards and slightly left, to see him staring down at her.

His mouth twitches as he brings his hand to her hair, lifting a damp end and casually curling it around his finger.

"I suppose you'll have to let your King help you."

She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry.

"What if I refuse?" her whisper is more like a whimper as his hand lets go of her hair and travels to her wet shoulder to softly massage it, "would you punish me?"

Her cheeks flare at her brazenness, but she stays resolute, wanting to play the game and play it well. Play it better than him.

"I would leave," he disagrees evenly, "if you refuse me, I have no right to take anything and it truly would be stealing. And I'm no thief."

"May you never steal," she murmurs suddenly, remembering the words they spoke before the weirwood tree, back when they came to beg the old gods to bless their marriage, though the words only ring true this night, "lie, or cheat. But if you must steal, then steal away my sorrows. If you must lie, lie with me all the nights of my life. And if you must cheat, then please cheat death-"

"-for I could never live a day without you."

He finishes the blessing for her, his voice washing over her, a rumbling Northern brogue that sounds like home. She closes her eyes against the sound.

"You remember," she whispers warmly.

"I remember."

She's warmed by him, this brave and brilliant man, only now seeing the truth of him. She wants more, more of him, all of him, and the loving warmth starts to spark into a heat more akin to lust.

"What if I _want_ to be punished?" she asks quietly, bottom lip snagged between her teeth, "would you punish me then?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

He leans down, lowering himself to his knees, and she feels the heat of him surround her.

"On how bad you've been."

His lips brush her ear as he speaks, sparking down to her toes.

She closes her eyes, leaning into him, as his hands come to grip the edges of the bath. She covers them with hers, entwining their fingers.

"Well... I married a man I was warned about," she tells him, "my cousin... but one I knew as a brother."

"That does sound rather bad," he plays along, face buried in her hair.

She hums in agreement.

"My poor mother would be besides herself," she pouts, "she hated him so."

If the reminder offends him, it doesn't show. In-fact, Sansa thinks about their relationship then, how cold and cruel her mother was.

When he'd stood at the foot of her birthing bed, Sansa had watched a muscle in his jaw tick and his eyes flash when she asked if they could call the bundle in her arms 'Catelyn', but still he'd given a short nod of consent. He'd said yes to the memory of a woman who had rejected him, a woman who had made him cry and feel worthless, and unwanted, and unloved. Still, he'd allowed it - because she had meant everything to Sansa and Sansa had loved her. That had to _mean_ something.

"And what would your mother say now?" he asks, his right hand tracing charged circles on the back of her hand before gently grasping her wrist.

"She would tell me to run. He's a bastard and bastards are base, and cruel, and wanton. They seek to corrupt little girls and tarnish their honour."

She feels the curve of his smirk against her neck. "Do you consider yourself corrupted?"

"In no way I haven't asked to be."

"Aye," he hums into her skin, his right hand letting go of her wrist. His fingers dance their way from the edge of the tub, under the water, to the inside of her thigh. He's devoid of his heavy armour or jerkin, clad in only a soft tunic, and the material soaks in the water. "I happen to think your mother is wrong."

She grabs his wrist, placing the hand between her legs, covering her breast with his left. He tweaks her nipple and the sensation shoots powerful and warm from her ribcage, trickling down to her calves. She arches against him.

"She was always wrong when it came to him," she whispers and two fingers gently part her and rub her swollen nub, almost like a thank you.

A soft moan falls from her lips as his talented fingers rub up and down her slit. He brushes her wet hair to one side so his mouth can drop to her neck to place soft kisses on the damp, heated skin. 

"And besides..." her voice chokes on a gasp as he drags his hot mouth up her neck to take her ear between his teeth and tug, "...he's not a bastard. He was never a bastard. He's a King."

"A King, you say?"

" _My_ King," possession flares to life inside her and she spreads her legs wider, arching against him again. He picks up on her signal and slips a finger inside her.

"And does he kiss you, this cruel King you married?" he asks, gently kissing her cheek to make his point before inserting another finger into her tight heat. Through unfocused, hooded eyes, she watches the water slosh and ripples on the surface appear as he thrusts his fingers inside her.

"Occasionally," she drawls, biting her bottom lip to conceal her moan. His other hand comes up, the pad of his thumb swiping over her bottom lip to release it from her teeth's grasp. He wants to hear her. The hand remains at her chest, gently gripping her throat.

"And does he fuck you?"

Heat flares between her thighs.

"Often and well," she says, "in-fact, he fucked a babe into me only a few moons past."

She feels him falter behind her at that, emitting a soft, hot growl into her damp hair. She clenches around his fingers as his grip tightens around her throat, feeling that tell-tail coil of pleasure in the pit of her stomach. She bucks her hips slightly to meet him and urges him to go faster with a soft whimper. The hand around her neck trails down to grip her breast and he rolls her hard nipple between his fingers.

"And does he love you?"

"He didn't," she says and her chest aches, "but now I think he might."

His lips curl against her neck.

"How could a sad man not love someone as lovely as you?"

She doesn't want him to be sad. She wants him to be warm and safe and happy, more than she wants it for herself.

"I love you," she tells him with an arch of her back, twisting in his arms until she's whispering against his mouth, "now make me come."

His lips twitch at her command, dark eyes flickering, and then he's kissing her, one hand under the water fucking her with his fingers as the other comes to wrap in her hair, anchoring her to his mouth. He kisses her like a man starved, lips slanting over hers, tongue coaxing her mouth open so he can lick inside. She moans into him, matching his enthusiasm, and she's the one who breaks away, pupils blown to black.

"That's it," he soothes, rubbing her harder, "gods, you're beautiful. Beautiful and strong and mine."

"Yes," she whines - and with one final buck of her hips, the band snaps, white hot pleasure sparking behind her eyes. Wave upon wave crashes over her body and he holds her all the while, riding her through, bringing her back down to earth.

Still trembling from the force of her orgasm, she barely registers him lifting her out of the water, placing her back down on shaky feet.

He wraps a robe around her, tying it and hooking his fingers around the belt to yank her to him.

He kisses her again, wet and wild, and when he breaks away, his eyes are black.

Her gaze flickers down to his breeches where she notices an unmistakable tenting. She covers his arousal with her palm, feeling his hard length through the fabric, and he hisses through white teeth.

He's just about to cover her mouth with his again when there's a timid knock on the door.

"Your Grace?" a handmaiden's voice flows through the wood and Jon's top lip curls in frustration, "would you like some assistance in getting out now?"

Jon moves to the door and cracks it open, strategically keeping his bottom half concealed from view.

The young girl's eyes widen, clearly surprised at the King's continued presence.

"Come back in the morning, my lady," he orders gently, "the Queen won't be needing your services tonight."

As she nods quickly and rushes away, Jon calls down the hall after her.

"Make that the afternoon."

His seed is still slick between her thighs when her maids come knocking past midday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in two days?! I was inspired. I am also incapable of writing straight smut so sorry about that, hope it was enough! The lines I've said were spoken to the old gods to bless their marriage are actually an old Irish blessing which I find beautiful. I also actually only heard it in the film Leap Year, but allow it? 🤷♀️😳


	24. Chapter 24

"Arya wants us to call the babe after her," Sansa whispers in the dark. Her mouth tips into a smile as she remembers her conversation with her sister, and her hand strokes over her growing bump without even realising it.

Jon turns to her, shifting beneath the furs. She glances to him and sees him strong and beautiful and flickering in half darkness, looking as melancholy as a Stark.

"Seems as good a plan as any," his voice is hoarse from disuse and he shrugs softly, arching a brow.

Sansa nods, also happy with the concept, and bites into her bottom lip.

"Would you be terribly disappointed..." she starts quietly, "if it is another girl, rather than a boy?"

Jon's expression doesn't change, stoic as ever, and that brow remains arched.

"Of course not," he answers after a beat, "in-fact, I have been meaning to discuss something with you."

Sansa sits up slightly, shifting on her forearms, so she can better look at him. This time, it's her brow that rises and her inquisitive eyes flicker over his face.

"Go on."

"I've been thinking about passing an Act of Succession."

Her brows knit together, a confused expression flitting over her face.

"What do you mean?"

"Catelyn is my child," he starts, and there's a hint of pride in his voice, "my firstborn. She's young, but she's clever and fierce and kind. Even if the babe is a boy, I see no reason why he should be held in higher regard than her, why she cannot rule as Queen as well as he would be King, after we are gone."

Sansa blinks, stunned.

"You want to make it so the crown would pass to her? Jon, you're talking about changing rules that have been in place for thousands of years-"

"-just because they are old, does not mean they are right," he says without missing a beat, "don't you agree?"

She pauses, thinking for a moment. 

"Of course _I_ agree, but do you think the Northern Lords will?"

"I am their King," he shrugs, "they will do as I command. If I decree it to be so, it will be so."

 _Lords and knights have accepted worse_ , Sansa thinks, _have_ _turned a blind eye to worse._ Joffrey's men murdered babes where they slept, traitors for belonging to a father they didn't even know. Before that, Robert Baratheon's trusted advisers were willing to poison an innocent young girl, just because the little dragon she grew in her belly posed a threat to his reign. Before that, the Mad King's knights stood idly by while his dragon burned his enemies where they stood, while he threatened to consume the city in deadly wildfire.

Making it so their firstborn inherits their crown seems a small ask in comparison. Why should Catelyn be denied because of what is - or isn't - between her legs?

"What has made you think this?" she asks after a beat, her voice soft.

He looks at her for a moment before he turns away, that permanent frown etched on his face.

"Winterfell is yours by right," he murmurs, voice low and quiet, "we're here because of you. Maybe I should have rejected it back then, but either way, I don't want Catelyn's voice snuffed out by her brother or her husband."

Sansa smiles, soft and then wide, touched by his concern. She can't pretend she hasn't harboured similar thoughts in the past, hasn't felt that pit of bitterness in her stomach, that voice asking why they should put their faith in a bastard, born in the South, rather than Ned Stark's trueborn daughter, born right here, within the loving walls of Winterfell.

The revelation that he was, in-fact, the last dragon hadn't lessened their support either, not when _her_ name was given to him.

But she's not bitter anymore, not twisted, because she knows now that what they have is _real._ She won back Winterfell with the Knights of the Vale, but so did he. He bled for her, he fought a war for her. He went where the fighting was thickest, prepared to lay down his life while Ramsay Bolton trembled cowardly in the distance.

They did it together, and they rule together. Sansa's confident in that now. This is the life they have, the life they built, stone by stone. There's no point in crying over another one, in losing oneself in _what might have been's._

"You're a good King, Jon," she says eventually, because it's true, "and a wonderful father."

His mouth twitches under his beard and he lays his hand on the gentle curve of her stomach.

"I will admit though," he sits up, his warm hand softly stroking her, "I like the idea of a son."

Sansa smiles, imagining what he might be like. She wonders if he'd be like his father, so serious and brooding, with little time for Catelyn's energetic antics. She wonders if he'd have Jon's curls and stormy eyes, or whether her Tully genes might shine through. She hopes he'd be like Jon, in looks and temperament.

"We should discuss names," she says, "I named Catelyn, perhaps this honour should be yours?"

Jon tips his head to the side, as if in contemplation. Still, he plays with the soft material of her shift and his fingers dance their way across her stomach.

"There is only one name I would consider," he says quietly, and his eyes flash with something akin to pain.

"Ned?" she tries gently, knowing what her father meant to him.

To her surprise, Jon shakes his head.

"I think our son should be called Robb," he murmurs and the name resonates in her chest, a dull ache that hasn't receded even after all these years, "I know there's no way of knowing, but the babe his wife was carrying... I'm certain he would have named it Eddard. I'm sure he planned for it, was filled with all these ideas... things he wanted for his child, the same things I want for Catelyn and _you,_ " he speaks to her bump then, voice low and soft, "I think the honour should stay with him... and his honour should live through us."

Sansa feels her eyes and throat burn, tears swimming behind the surface of her lids. She feels his words in her chest, winding tight like the tendrils in the wolfswood, and she places her hands on top of his.

She entwines their fingers, squeezing tight.

"You really loved him, didn't you?" she asks a question she knows the answer to, her lips pursed tightly.

His lips twitch but it's not quite a smile.

"I loved him," he confirms, "he was brave and strong and everything that was right and _good_ in the world. He was better than me, better than all of us."

"He loved you too," she says, because he did. Robb and Jon had been best friends since they were old enough to know what a best friend was. Robb didn't treat him like a half brother like she did. He treated him the way he treated Bran and Rickon, and he chastised her when she was cruel.

 _Jon's our brother,_ he would say, _he's ours._

"They say it gets better over time," Sansa whispers, "but it doesn't, does it? The hurt never goes away. Even if we lived another 100 years, we'd never forget. And we shouldn't."

"I should have been there," he says fiercely, his features turning sullen again, and he's never spoken to her about this before, "I couldn't help him fight. I couldn't save him. I couldn't-"

"-die with him?" she asks, reading him all too well. She knows he thinks he should have left the wall. He thinks he should have _known,_ that the sound of the knife being plunged into his brother's chest should have sent him running. He should have felt it the moment Robb did, because the same blood roared through their veins, because he was such a part of him.

"Aye," he murmurs, his hands gripping her shift in a loose fist now.

She lifts their entwined hands, placing a soft kiss on the back of his.

"I'm glad you didn't."

"What is your plan, your Grace?" Ser Davos asks as they sit around the table, discussions regarding Cersei Lannister and Kings Landing and the war to come still raging on.

Jon tips his head to the side, his expression reticent despite the subject matter.

When he opens his mouth, his voice isn't Jon's, but the King in the North's.

"The armies are ready, the Northern houses sworn to us," Sansa had worried that bending the knee would lose their support, but whilst some had wavered or turned against them, Baelish's betrayal and their devotion to their young princess had restored much of their loyalty, "and I have two dragons. We will march South and we will destroy the Lannisters once and for all."

Davos shifts in his seat, looking almost uncomfortable.

"What is it?" Sansa urges gently.

"If we succeed, if we manage to overthrow Cersei... what then?"

Jon quirks a brow in response and Davos clears his throat before continuing.

"There are no Targaryens left. The Kingslayer and the imp would remain, either one could vie for power. But there is only one true heir to the Iron Throne, only one person with a real, tangible claim..."

Throughout his speech, Sansa's eyes remained fixed to Jon, watching his every reaction. At the reminder of his birthright, his jaw locks, his dark grey eyes blazing.

 _Ice and fire,_ Sansa thinks, _my husband is both._

"I do not want the Iron Throne," Jon insists, "I never have. I only want the North to be safe."

"With all due respect, my King," Davos starts, "perhaps you do not get to choose. Consider it, Jon. What if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman, and an honorable man?

Jon turns to Sansa, that brow still arched, gauging her own reaction.

"I gave up my chance to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms," she says quietly. Those dreams died with Joffrey in a land half a world away, a land she has no interest in returning to.

And yet, Septa Mordane's words, spoken a lifetime ago before that very cold and unforgiving throne, echo in her mind.

_Someday your husband will sit there... and you will sit by his side._

Sometimes, Sansa thinks, fate can be a funny, cruel thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit short (it's not the shortest chapter tho!|) and is kinda filler, I'm not totally happy with it, I just wanted to get something out while I work on the next few chapters! Not sure exactly how many are left, but we're on the home stretch now :( thank you for all your lovely, continued support, I'm rubbish at replying to comments but please know I read and cherish every one! <3


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an update within a day! It's nearly 2,000 words longer! It's a family disagreement! It's SMUT! Hope you enjoy

Sansa quirks a brow, the words she's reading to Catelyn in her lap dying in her throat as the chamber door flies open with a bang.

The room practically vibrates with anger, bouncing off the walls, but it's not coming from Jon, who enters with his hands clasped behind his back, a measured expression on his face. It's coming from Arya who's hot on his heels, fire blazing behind her eyes.

"Just tell me why!" her voice is raised and cut with fury. It trembles as she speaks. 

"Please... do come in," Sansa mutters under her breath, rolling her eyes with a start as Arya slams the chamber door shut behind her.

Jon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He turns to face his sister turned cousin, neither of them paying any attention to Sansa and her daughter in the corner.

"It's not _safe,_ Arya," he bites out, jaw locked, "you know that."

Arya bristles, her eyes narrowing.

"It's not safe for _anyone,_ that isn't stopping them from going. It shouldn't stop me."

Sansa clears her throat, watching with a hint of amusement as they swirl around, eyes widening as they notice her. She tips her head to the side, mouth twitching at Catelyn's little giggle.

"I didn't know you were here," Jon murmurs, voice softening, "what _are_ you doing here?"

"Catelyn wanted to be read to in your chambers," she shrugs. Since he came back from war, Catelyn has stuck to him like glue, anxious to be apart, and her abduction has only intensified her clinginess, "I assumed you wouldn't mind."

He rubs at the back of his neck, an uneasy expression flicking over his face.

"Of course not," he says, but his eyes dart to Arya, like they should take this conversation elsewhere.

But Arya is undeterred, unbothered about the company. Her anger doesn't dissipate.

"He won't let me fight," she seethes, looking to Sansa for moral support, "he won't let me come to Kings Landing with him."

Jon sighs again, briefly closing his eyes. It's silent for a moment as Sansa considers this, her gaze flitting between them, Catelyn fussing bored in her lap.

"Is this true?"

Jon's eyes open and he looks conflicted and irritated and very, _very_ tired.

"She could _die_ , Sansa," he says heavily, weightily, "only three of Ned Stark's children remain; the North cannot afford to lose her."

Sansa wants to roll her eyes. He's still so stubborn, so relentless in his refusal to admit his feelings.

He hides behind euphemism, scared to be vulnerable, and he won't admit that it's not the _North_ who cannot afford to lose her.

Perhaps if he admits he needs her, Arya may understand a little more. If he admits how he _worries_ for her. How when she's away, he watches the ravens a little more closely, always anxious for word of her. How there's always a little crease between his brows whenever her name is mentioned, a slight clench to his jaw. He worries for her the way he worries for Catelyn, and all he wants is for her to be happy and warm and _safe_.

But they're as stubborn as each other, Sansa thinks as they glare at her, both certain they're right.

"Brienne's going!" Arya practically shouts, outraged, "and I can hold my own as well as her! I can look after myself. And this is _my fight_ too. I was in Kings Landing. I watched them kill Lady and Mycah and Syrio and Father. _I_ avenged Robb and Mother. They took _my niece._ It's _personal_. I can't sit here, useless. I spent years fending for myself. I was a captive in Harrenhal, I left the Hound to die on the banks of the Trident, I trained as a faceless man in Braavos, I was stabbed in the gut, I _fought_. I killed. I'm _good,_ Jon. You know that. You're the one who taught me."

She's so passionate, there are tears brimming at the surface of her eyes and she furiously blinks them away, determined not to look weak. She practically trembles in her fury and Sansa can't remember the last time she saw her like this, so wild, so frenzied.

Jon blinks, his jaw still locked tight as he lifts his chin slightly.

"My answer is no."

Arya lets out an enraged scoff, angrily brushing away the first tear that escapes her eye.

"Seven hells, Jon!" she snarls, "you are _insufferable!_ You might be King, but you're still a man. You're not a _god_ and you're not my _fucking_ father. I refuse to sit here in a fancy dress braiding Sansa's hair, unable to prove my worth just because I don't have a cock between my legs-"

"Arya!" Jon snaps angrily, his temper finally flaring, "Enough."

His eyes flit to Catelyn, wanting to shield her from Arya's potty mouth. Sansa frowns too, slightly hurt by her sister's words, but she understands she's angry, and deep down, she agrees with her.

She's put to the test when Jon glances at her, a tired sigh falling from his lips again.

"Tell her, Sansa," he murmurs, "please."

Sansa shifts slightly, her fingers gently untangling the knots in Catelyn's curls as she speaks.

"I'm sorry, Jon, but I agree with Arya," she says, much to his dismay, "I know you worry for her, I do too. But you fought for _her_ right to fight. You taught her how to hold a sword, how to use it. Gods, you had one _made_ for her _._ You told father that she should be able to fight and shoot arrows instead of practicing her needlework and wear breeches instead of dresses. It seems to me that you cannot take all that away now, just because it doesn't suit you, because you are afraid to lose her."

"I'm not afraid," he bites out automatically, his brows furrowing.

"You are," Sansa says, "we all are. You don't want her to get hurt, but you cannot keep her under your wing forever. You can't lock her away in Winterfell. You have to let her _breathe,_ Jon."

Arya blinks, stunned but grateful, her arms crossed over her chest.

There's a brief flicker of weakness before he composes himself, but it's enough to encourage Arya to try her hand again.

She takes a step forward, taking his hand.

"Just tell me you'll think about it, Jon," she tries, blinking up at him with big, innocent eyes. 

_She plays him like a fiddle_ , Sansa thinks, just like when Catelyn asks him for a lemon cake before supper because she knows her mother will say no, or to play with the dragons Sansa's still wary of, or to read another story when it's already past her bedtime.

The great King in the North, reduced to a puppet on a string for the women in his life.

"Aye," he grumbles eventually, but he doesn't look happy about it, "I will think about it."

Her lips twitch into a smile and she lifts herself onto her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. She throws Sansa a grateful smile before she bounces out of the room, far more calm than when she arrived.

Jon turns to her, his brow arching expectantly.

Before she can say anything, Catelyn pipes up.

"Could you have a sword made for _me,_ Papa?"

Sansa tries not to laugh as Jon blinks, speechless, before he lets out a frustrated groan.

Jon puts Catelyn to bed, carrying her to her chambers and reading _one_ story before he kisses her on the forehead and turns out the light.

When he returns to his chambers, Sansa's pacing up and down. The click as he gently shuts the door is deafening.

"Are you terribly annoyed?" she says with a wince, but her mouth is twisted in a manner she hopes is light and playful.

He's unreadable for a moment as he slowly walks towards her, his hands clasped behind his back. The flames from the fireplace lick up his body, illuminating him in the darkness, and she holds her breath.

Finally, he reaches her, his gaze flickering to hers.

"No," he murmurs after a beat, lifting his hand and absentmindedly wrapping a strand of red hair around his finger, "I'm not annoyed. I suppose in the long run, you are right."

"I know it's difficult," she whispers, "but Arya is capable. She deserves to fight for her home, as you did."

"She will bleed for us," he warns her, his voice low and severe, "she may die for us."

"So may you," Sansa says, the words feeling like a knife in her gut, "but I do not suppose that will stop you."

"Aye, it won't," he concedes softly, "at least I would have her with me. _Some_ family, until I return to you."

Sansa tries a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. They haven't spoken about this yet, how he will inevitably have to leave her. War is no place for a pregnant Queen, has never been a place for her at all, hers being in the politics behind. Soon he'll be gone, slipping through her fingers again, vanishing into the dark. She wants to hold on to him, to let him crawl inside her where she can swallow him whole, where she can keep him safe, never to bleed out onto the battlefield.

His gaze flickers from her eyes to her mouth and back again, before his pupils darken.

"Although part of me _does_ want you with me..." his voice descends into a growl, dark and low, and he winds an arm around her waist to drag her to him, "they say there's nothing like having a woman after a battle."

His voice is a husky murmur and she can feel the whisper of a smirk against her lips. She likes him like this, seductive and possessive and wanting. It makes her feel powerful, desirable; two things she feared she'd never be again, not after what Ramsay did to her.

"How would you know?" she plays along, eyes fluttering shut as his mouth skims across her lips to her flushed cheek, "I don't recall any great battles during your time with the wildling girl, though I know you had her. And you certainly didn't have _me_ after the Battle for Winterfell."

"I wanted it though," he admits, his breath still hot on her cheek, "when my blood still roared from the battle, my fists aching from Ramsay's face... _gods,_ how I wanted you."

The revelation stirs something warm in her gut and she pulls back slightly, her eyes drifting over his face inquisitively.

"You did?"

"Aye, I did. _Wanting_ you has never been the problem, Sansa. Part of me has _always_ wanted you, but you weren't for me. So highborn and pretty," his smile is somewhat sad then as he twirls a strand of her hair again, "it only got worse after we won back Winterfell. When I knew he was dead, when I heard how you fed him to his hounds... _fuck_ , I had never wanted you so badly. It was dark and _wrong_ and I wanted to comfort you... but I wanted to bend you over the table more."

Desire flares in the pit of her belly at his tone, all low and dark and Northern gruff. She pulls him closer, kissing him briefly before capturing his full bottom lip between her teeth and giving it a tug.

"Show me," she demands.

He quirks a brow at that, warm hand curling around the back of her neck. "Now?"

She tugs at his jerkin, walking them backwards.

"Now," she feels his desk behind her, bumping against the small of her back, and her mouth grazes hot against his again, "I want to feel you inside me. I want to still feel you between my legs weeks after you've left me. I want to feel the proof of how you much you want me."

His strong hand cups her bump and he places a soft, too-short kiss on her lips.

"This isn't proof enough?" his asks, his palm resting above his unborn child.

She clicks her tongue.

"Never enough."

Something close to a growl escapes him then, and he captures her lips in a searing kiss. It lasts just long enough for her to run her tongue along the seam of his lips, permitting her one taste, before he twirls her around, easily unlacing her dress and helping her to shrug out of it. He swipes the papers and unlit candles off his desk, uncaring as they hit the floor, and encourages her to bend over with a little push on the small of her back.

She holds her breath as she hears him untying his laces behind her, one warm hand coming to rest on her hip. Her cunt clenches around nothing when she hears a slight jostling sound, heat flaring beneath her skin as she realises he's touching himself. Her mind sparks with a memory then, nights at the beginning of their relationship, when he would often take her like this. Still feeling like siblings and uncomfortable with their new positions, they had found it easier than being face to face. Their passion denied and muted, they had been spurred mainly by their duty to provide the North with an heir. So, Jon would take her from behind, almost bringing himself to completion first, and she would lay her burning cheek on the furs, feeling him moving inside her and listening to his even pants slowly merge into one long, tortured groan.

They had become braver over the years, more experimental with their coupling, but this position remains one of her favourites.

She feels the wolf in him when he takes her like this, something animalistic, something primal, about it.

The persistent nudge of his member against her clit brings her back to the present. She can feel the blunt touch of his fist as he jerks himself lazily behind her, his knuckles occasionally making contact with her wet slit. She hasn't needed any sort of lubrication or oil for years now and she would be embarrassed by her eagerness if she wasn't sure that he wanted her just as much.

She cants her hips, feeling that hot rock of desire in the pit of her belly. She chases the feeling, rubbing harder against his member, biting back her moan at the sensation of his hard cock rubbing up and down her cunt.

"Sansa, stop-" he chokes out, almost panting, yet his fist still jerks his cock against her heat and his other hand grips her hip, "I know you don't need my seed, but I'd still rather spill inside you."

The image of him losing control with a grunt, coating her in his seed, feeling it drip down her thighs, sears hot behind her eyes. But she stops moving nonetheless, and feels him push into her, stretching her around his cock.

Sansa whimpers, spreading her legs wider as he fucks her in shallow thrusts. She feels unbearably hot and full, grinding her hips against him, chasing that release. She glances over her shoulder and heat flares under her skin at the sight of him staring at where they connect, pupils blown to black as he watches his cock slide in and out of her. He looks mesmerised, unable to look away, and his hands come to grip her hips.

She returns her gaze ahead, a desperate moan falling from her lips as he hits the perfect spot. She feels like she's burning from the inside out, every stroke against her walls driving her closer to the edge. She rests her forehead on the cool wood of the desk, but it does little to quench the fire under her skin.

She feels that hot coil of pleasure in the pit of her stomach, a tingling sensation that erupts outwards. She pants his name, over and over like a prayer, as he fucks her harder into the desk. It scrapes across the floor, whining under his onslaught, and the coil snaps just as he starts to pound into her. The obscene sound of flesh slapping on flesh tips her over the edge and she comes with a silent scream, her toes curling into stone floor. He's not far behind. His hips stutter before he rams himself to the hilt, pausing with a grunt as he spills inside her.

She winces at the emptiness as he pulls out, feeling some of his seed drip down her thighs, and she shudders in the afterglow.

She turns on shaky legs, placing her forehead on his still-clothed chest, and gives a breathless laugh, aching in all the right ways.

"You better not bring home any _Jon Snows_ of your own," she says when he's panting and she's wet between her thighs from two more orgasms. He shudders next to her, running a hand through his loose, damp curls. She's joking of course, but his brows pull into a frown all the same.

"I do not intend to be away for that long."

"Not really the answer I was looking for."

He quirks a brow, turning to glance at her. He's never been one to pander to her, refusing to indulge her insecurities, to provide flowery admissions or spin honey tales like a perfumed lord might do.

He's a Northern man, unapologetically gruff and honest - sometimes painfully honest.

"I know what you were looking for," he says, refusing to yield.

But he _should_ yield, Sansa thinks. It wouldn't kill him to pander to her, not after six years of leaving her out in the cold.

"My mother was pregnant when my father rode off to war," she points out, her hand absentmindedly travelling to her stomach again.

Jon's brow remains arched.

"Ned never betrayed your mother."

"I know, but... Kings have been known to father bastards. It wouldn't be anything new. And you said yourself, there's nothing like having a woman after a battle. Your men may wish to comfort themselves in a Kings Landing tavern or a brothel when the fighting is done."

"Aye, they might," Jon concedes with a slight tilt of his head, "but they are not me; I am not them."

Sansa nods slowly, still not entirely happy with his reply. He reads it on her face and gives a sigh, irritated by his own reticence, his inability to express himself. He sits up on his forearms, grey eyes sweeping over her.

"Sansa, you will always be the only mother to my children. I will father none but yours."

She stares at him for a moment, soft and unblinking.

"Truly?" she checks, though he couldn't have been any clearer, "I mean... you haven't... before? I know we haven't always been close..."

Deep down, she's always wondered. They were strangers to each other the day they got married, at least in the intimate sense of the word. They often went moons without him visiting her chambers, a shake to his head and a murmur _"not tonight"_ at the dining table, and she knew that men had their needs - Kings most of all. She often wondered whether a pretty serving girl had caught his eye, whether one of her handmaidens might suit his desires more than she did. As the years rolled by, she never noticed any babes born with black curls and grey eyes in the castle, never any that looked like Catelyn. But her husband often rode out of Winterfell, often visited the Northern towns nearby, and still... she wondered.

He shakes his head, taking her hand.

"I have only ever been with you and Ygritte," he used to refuse to say her name, used to rain down fury on anyone who did, but now he says it without hesitation, without pain - a part of his past as much as the Wall, "and there will be no-one else. _No-one else,_ only you,until the end of my days."

She smiles softly, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on his lips.

He kisses her back, just as soft and reverent.

She settles on his chest, her hair fanning out like a blanket between them.

 _The war is coming_ , she remembers as a chill sweeps over her skin, and there will be no time for warm reassurances or embraces then.


	26. Chapter 26

“And we have enough for winter?” Sansa asks Maester Wolkan as she walks beside him on the balcony, her hands clasped in front of her.

“We have four thousand bushels, your Grace,” he answers, his steps matching hers, “enough for the year.”

 _That isn’t what I asked,_ Sansa thinks, but she bites her tongue. They begin to climb the wooden steps down to the courtyard and her eyes flit over the hustle and bustle, Brienne and Podrick sparring, guards standing watch, blacksmiths sharpening swords and covering steel armour with tough leather for winter.

“And what if winter lasts longer than a year?” she had hoped the sphere of Littlefinger’s influence hadn’t engulfed her men, yet Master Wolkan seems to have learned his skill for diverting the question, “I would have to consult Maester Luwin’s records, but I believe it has been known.”

“I… am not sure, your Grace.”

“It will be enough for the occupants of Winterfell once the armies of the North leave for war. However, when they return…?”

Maester Wolkan shifts on his feet, awkward and uncomfortable under the Queen’s onslaught of questions. She quirks a brow as she waits for his response. When Jon marches South, the day fast approaching on the horizon, she will be left in charge. He has entrusted Winterfell to her, just as she would to him if she were gone, and she refuses to let it fall into hard times under her hands. 

Wolkan clears his throat and finally admits defeat.

“It likely will not be sufficient.”

Sansa tips her head slightly, wringing her hands.

“Exactly. We must prepare for that possibility. We must start building up our grain stores with regular shipments from any keeps in the North who can spare them.”

Maester Wolkan nods, but before he can say anything, a dragon lets out a tremendous cry.

There are gasps from everyone in the courtyard, some watching in awe, some cowering, as both dragons appear on the horizon. Each flap of their wings brings with it a huge gust of wind and Sansa’s eyes water, squinting as she lifts her hand to shield her gaze from the snow sprays.

Catelyn comes bounding towards her, the new Septa they’ve arranged for her after all that’s happened running breathlessly behind her. The woman’s face is red with exertion, her hands pinching her skirts at the thighs as she tries to keep up. Arya smirks, walking casually behind them with her hands clasped behind her back, probably seeing a mirror image of herself as a child.

Sansa grunts, the wind knocked out of her, as Catelyn runs into her belly.

“Careful,” she hums as she picks her up, her bump now big enough that she can just rest her above it. 

“Look Mama!” as per usual, she doesn’t listen, and her little hand points to the sky, “it’s Papa!”

Sansa’s eyes scan the courtyard for Jon. When she doesn’t see him, she follows Catelyn’s line of sight, her brows pulling into a frown.

The dragons land with a flourish, the occupants of the courtyard scampering out of their way as the ground shakes. Sansa’s never seen them together and the sight is something, indeed.

It’s not as shocking, however, as the image of her husband climbing down from the top of one of them, his boots crunching on the gravel.

“Papa!” Catelyn cheers happily again, clearly having noticed him even while he was in the sky. Sansa’s too stunned to stop her from jumping down, her arms loosening around her. She watches as she runs to Jon and he scoops her up with a chuckle of his own.

“Again, again!” she asks him to fly, bouncing on his hip, her little hands pulling at his beard. He tips his head back slightly, away from her inquisitive hands, and holds her close to his body.

As he walks, those around him bow slightly, tipping their heads in respect, but he doesn’t appear to see them. He sees only Sansa – and he stops in-front of her.

“Please explain yourself,” she says, only half joking.

Jon just shrugs, shunting Catelyn higher up his hip.

“If I want them to fight for me, I need to know how to ride them. How to control them. It looked simple enough when Daenerys did it. It just… felt like the right thing to do.”

Sansa narrows her eyes. She understands his reasoning, but it’s dangerous and foreign and it doesn’t sit right with her. She worries for him enough, without the possibility of him falling from the sky added to the list.

Before she can question him any further, Catelyn opens her mouth to speak, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Don’t even think about it,” Sansa bites out, her brow arched pointedly. Catelyn snaps her mouth shut with a pout before turning the look to Jon hopefully, the way she always does when her mother says no.

He huffs a laugh, shaking his head softly.

“Maybe when you’re older, little one.”

Catelyn rolls her eyes, but gives a sigh of defeat.

“What about me?” Arya asks, appearing beside them, excited eyes matching her niece’s, “that looked _amazing_.”

“Don’t push it, Arya,” Sansa mutters as her sister stares at the creatures, wide eyed.

Jon’s mouth twitches as he closes the distance between them, placing a soft kiss on his wife's lips before walking past her, taking Catelyn with him inside.

Sansa would never want Arya on the back of one of those things. Starks of Winterfell aren’t meant to ride dragons _._ It’s said that the Northerners are made of ice, that they melt when they pass the Twins, and their blood isn’t made for fire.

As Sansa turns to watch him go, she reminds herself her husband _isn’t_ a Stark of Winterfell. Not really.

For the first time, that truth is a comfort.

He comes to her chambers the night before he journeys South.

She opens her door in her modest shift, knowing he would come. Her eyes sweep over him, still dressed in his formal attire, even his furs wrapped around his shoulders.

He’s frowning, but then he’s always frowning, and she opens the door and lets him inside.

“It’s late,” she murmurs, reaching for him. His arms remain at his sides as she runs her hands down his furs, “why are you still dressed?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he shrugs and his voice is gruff and hoarse, like he’s been pacing his solar up and down for hours, rather than indulging in any human contact.

She goes to reply, but the words die in her throat when he loosens his leather gloves with his teeth before pulling them off. They go to her bump like that's the only thing that could comfort him, and almost immediately, his unborn child kicks under his palm.

Sansa's eyes widen, her gaze flitting from his face to her stomach and back again.

“He’s never done that before,” she whispers in awe.

Jon’s jaw is clenched, his face unreadable other than a slight flicker of grief.

“How do you know it’s a he?”

Sansa shrugs, “I just do. I feel it. I have your son inside me.”

She watches the movement of his throat as he swallows, his hands remaining on her bump, as though he can will the child to kick again.

In that moment, as he stares at his hands, she’s sees everything he’s afraid of. She sees their son born while he still wars in the South, fighting for a throne he doesn’t even want. She sees the fear that he might fall on the battlefield and never meet him, might never hold little Robb Stark in his arms and pledge for him a better life, a _safer_ life, than the one who first held that name. She sees kicking again, only this time outside of her body, little feet that she’ll grab on to and play with in his crib while she waits for his father to return to them.

Jon’s brows furrow again.

“Sansa, there’s just so much – ” _so much he wants to say, but just_ _can’t_. His words trail off with a broken sigh, his eyes screwing shut.

She shakes her head, her hand coming up to cradle his cheek.

He leans in to her touch, his hand coming up to gently grasp her wrist. He turns his face, placing a soft kiss on her palm.

Briefly, she’s struck by how very different this pregnancy is. Of course, he was happy back when she announced she was with child with Catelyn. He had stood, his hands clasped behind his back, and he’d faltered for only a moment before he wrapped his hand around her neck and dragged her forehead to his lips. The kiss was brief, barely enough time for her eyes to flutter shut, and his expression had been curiously unreadable before he left her where she stood in his solar. But the contact had been more than she had gotten in months and more intimate than the handful of times he’d dutifully, almost coldly, made love to her.

She’s embarrassed to say she held on to that kiss for a long time. In the months to come, it meant more to her than his uneasy smiles, the detached way he’d ask if she was well, and it was surpassed only by the soft, appreciative one he left on her lips the day Catelyn was born.

Now, there’s no restraint in his touch, no sense of duty. He anchors his hands to her widening hips and looks like he’s in pain.

“Kiss me,” she murmurs, “and then you can tell me goodbye.”

His eyes open, sad and tired, and he does as she asks. _More_ than she asks. He lays her down on the furs and makes love to her for the last time in only the gods know when. His hands are urgent as they unlace his breeches, hers needy as she throws off those furs he doesn’t need. Their pants fill the chambers, her breathy moans and his low grunts probably echoing out into the hallway outside, but neither care.

 _Let them all hear_ , she thinks.

Let them hear how their King loves his lady Sansa, and maybe they’ll work harder to keep him safe, to return him to her.

Catelyn cries when he leaves.

She holds onto his leg, much like she does every day, climbing into his lap while he works at his desk, or as he prepares to ride his horse. This time, however, he just glances down at her with a sad smile and unfurls her from his body. She can’t sit with him this time. There are no more battle plans to pour over and he can’t take her on his horse, not where he’s going.

Ghost bounds over too, happily jumping on his master’s chest. Jon gently pushes him off, raking his fingers through his fur. Catelyn hugs him next, her tiny arms wrapped around the wolf’s neck, and he nuzzles into her.

She’s losing them both, Sansa thinks mournfully, and she grieves for her more than herself.

He says goodbye to Bran first. A kiss to his forehead, a request that he’ll help look after things while he’s gone. They say Bran doesn’t smile much anymore. He doesn’t laugh or play or show much of anything on his face -- but a flicker of sadness passes over his features when Jon kisses him.

Next are Sam and Gilly, round with her own babe, then a few of the older lords left behind.

“I’ll look after him,” Arya promises, enveloping Sansa in her own embrace. When they break away, there are tears shining behind Arya’s eyes and she picks Catelyn up, letting the young girl wrap her arms tight around her neck.

“Look after yourself,” Sansa demands, because she’s her sister and she loves her and she needs her almost as much as she needs Jon.

Arya nods sadly, putting Catelyn down and mounting her horse.

Finally, they’re given space as everyone readies their horses and it’s just the three of them.

Sansa swallows past the lump in her throat and he clearly doesn’t know what to say and still, Catelyn cries.

“Be safe,” she says, hand flat against his armour breastplate. He doesn't say anything, just cups her face and looks at her for a moment. 

He kisses her with closed lips, once for goodbye.

He kisses Catelyn too, once on the forehead, and then he’s turning and walking away from her and Sansa aches from the loss.

He doesn’t turn back as he rides through the gates, hooves spraying up showers of snow around him and two dragons roaring ahead.

Sansa picks Catelyn up and turns her face from the crowd, determined that her people don’t see their Queen cry.


	27. Chapter 27

"You're good at this, you know." Bran's even voice interrupts her reverie, dragging her attention back to him.

Sansa blinks, sitting forward slightly in her chair. They're in her solar, his wheelchair placed carefully in-front of her desk, and her elbows rest on the surface. Her hands tent over her mouth, fingers loosely entwined.

"At what?"

"Ruling," Bran elaborates, "you doubt yourself, but you shouldn't. The Northern Lords respect you. There's power in you, Sansa."

"It's still difficult sometimes," she says, "to trust that I'm doing the right thing."

She won't admit, not even to herself, that she still aches over her decision to bend the knee. She thinks it was the right one. After-all, they're all here and together and safe, but still... she tortures herself. She wonders whether the Northern Lords will ever _truly_ forgive her, whether they understand that everything she does, she does for them.

For the North.

She won't admit that when she closes her eyes, she sees Lord Glover's angry face staring down at her in the Great Hall.

 _To_ _subject_ _us_ _to_ _a_ _Southern_ _tyrant_ _,_ she hears his voice, cold and betrayed, _to_ _doom_ _yourself_ _to_ _the_ _same_ _fate_ _as_ _your_ _brother_ _,_ _to_ _spit_ _on_ _the_ _faith_ _us_ _Northmen_ _showed_ _in_ _you_ _…_ _this_ _is_ _what_ _you_ _have_ _decided_ _?_

The words had sliced deep into her skin, as deep as any of Ramsay's cuts, branded there forever. She's terrified of repeating Robb's mistakes, of plunging their people into grief again, this time for her and Jon. Their faith means _everything_ to her, and it had hurt to hear him accuse her of tossing it all aside for nothing.

"You made a decision you knew wouldn't be popular," Bran seems to read her mind in that unsettling way of his, "you knew they might turn on you, you knew you might never win your crown back. Still, you did what you had to do, to protect the ones you love. People who wouldn't even _understand_ what you were doing for them. Even Jon couldn't do that."

Sansa blinks at him, momentarily stunned. They're not in competition, her and Jon. He's her King and she trusts him, but it feels good to be validated. She's spent so many years without that. It feels good to have someone tell her she was clever and just and _right_ _._ It feels good that he understands, when so many others still don't.

She smiles. Bran doesn't.

"One of these days..." she starts, "will you tell me what happened to you? I want to understand."

That expression doesn't change, stoic and unreadable in a way that's different to anyone she's ever met. Bran's empty, like there's no fight left, like a candle's been left burning in the window, but there's no-one home.

"You can't understand," he says evenly, "no-one can. There's only me."

She feels his response in her chest, a dull ache that makes her sad. This isn't the life father wanted for him, certainly not the life mother wanted for him. She wanted him to grow big and strong, become a knight of the Kingsguard or raise castles like Brandon the Builder or at least be _happy_.

Bran hasn't been happy in a long time. He hasn't been anything.

"I love you, Bran," she tells him, a crease to her brow, "you know that, don't you?"

The words would have moved him once, she's sure of it. She'd _seen_ it. When he was a boy, he always ran too hot. He was more affectionate than Arya, more excitable than Robb, quicker to anger than Jon. They used to laugh at his temper, insisting he cried more than Rickon and he was just a babe. He loved climbing and running and being with his siblings, fighting and playing in equal measures. Sansa would often tuck him into bed, placing a kiss on his forehead and muttering those words - _"_ _love_ _you_ _,_ _brother_ _" -_ and he'd always smile back - " _love_ _you_ _,_ _too_ _"._

But that was a long time ago - and he's felt nothing since.

"Yes," is all the reply she gets today.

She bites back her sigh, trying to remind herself of the heavy burden he carries. He sees so much now, all the pain in the world. The gods know, she's been through her fair share. She can't imagine taking any more on, and she understands better than anyone the allure of turning it all off.

"I'm glad the Lords respect me," she diverts the subject, knowing he won't give her any more of himself; there's nothing left to give. "I'm glad that I can rule well in my own right. But I wish Jon were here, that we were doing it together. I haven't heard from him in weeks, not since he arrived in Kings Landing, and I fear my time is near."

Bran's eyes flicker to her belly, now swollen and round, and her hands come to soothe the ache.

"Yes," he says, "it won't be long now."

Sansa balks with surprise.

"How do you know? You can see it?"

Her surprise only intensifies when the corner of Bran's mouth lifts. For a moment, he looks like he's been brought to life and the muscles in his face twitch, as though they're trying to remember how to smile.

"I have _eyes_ , Sansa. I don’t need to be the three eyed raven to see you're fit to burst."

It's so characteristically Bran, so unapologetic and honest, she lets out a laugh.

"Are you calling me fat?" she asks and laughs again. It feels so good, she can't stop, and her cheeks start to ache.

Bran's face flushes, more animated - _more_ _alive_ _-_ than she's seen him in years, and when a smile finally breaks through, she feels an ache in her chest.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he replies and he sounds like that little boy again, the one who never fell from the sky.

Gilly’s babe comes first.

It’s a beautiful boy, born with a full head of sandy blonde hair, and he fusses in Sansa’s arms when she holds him, perched above her own bump. She wasn’t at Gilly’s side during the birth, busy discussing the wheat stores with Maester Wolkan, but she’s here now, and she watches the exhausted woman sleep.

Sam sits opposite her, on the other side of the bed, and Sansa notices him chewing his bottom lip nervously.

“You’ll be a wonderful father, Sam,” she reads the anxiety written all over his face, “you already are.”

After-all, he’s been the only father little Sam has ever known. She thinks he has nothing to worry about.

“Have you thought about names?”

Sam lifts his eyes, his expression heavy and significant.

“If it was a girl, we talked about naming her Talla, after my sister,” his lips curl into a soft smile as he glances first at his babe in Sansa’s arms, then to Gilly and back again, awe shining behind his eyes, “In-fact, I think she’ll be most annoyed it’s a boy.”

Sansa huffs a laugh, rocking the babe slightly.

“I think Arya will be the same,” she says, imagining her sister’s reaction if her babe is a boy, as she expects it is. She wonders where Arya is then, if she’s safe, and she swallows past the sudden lump in her throat.

“But it _is_ a boy…" Sam's speaking again, "and we do have a name.”

Sansa lifts her eyes to him, arching her brow expectantly.

He smiles again, this time gentle and wistful.

“We’re calling him Jon.”

Sansa stares at him for a beat, a warmth spreading through her veins. She glances at the babe in her arms and inexplicably holds him tighter to her, feeling the way she knows Jon would. Flattered and protective, like he doesn’t deserve it. Like he can never live up to it.

“He’ll be honoured, Sam.”

She can’t tear her eyes away from the babe – _Jon –_ and her chest feels too tight.

She wants her husband back; she misses him so much it makes her panic. She wants him to meet his namesake, to hold him in his own arms, to teach Sam how to be a father again. If the babe in her own belly is a boy, she wants their sons to grow up together, sparring in the courtyard while she and Gilly tell them to be careful. Maybe little Jon will take after his father, as little Robb will take after his. Or maybe he’ll be like his namesake - a fighter, a warrior - and Robb will be like Sam, with his nose constantly buried in a book. She wants to know. She wants Jon to be there to see it.

Sam seems to read her mind.

“He’ll be okay, Sansa. Jon is Jon,” he shrugs, like that _means_ something, “he’ll come back to you.”

He can’t promise that, but Sansa gives him a grateful smile nonetheless.

She's taking an afternoon nap when her own strangled gasp jolts her awake.

She bolts up in bed, her stomach dropping at the wetness between her legs. She throws the furs off, frightened eyes darting down to the sheets. Her heart settles slightly at the clear liquid soaking into the linen, her waters having broken.

Her relief is quickly replaced by fear again as she realises it’s time.

Her stomach contracts painfully, taking her breath away. She grits her teeth against the wave, screwing her eyes shut until it passes. She tries to remember Catelyn’s birth, where she was and how long it lasted and how she got through it, but it’s all a blur. She can’t think, she can’t even _breathe._

Once she has her breath back, she calls for her handmaidens, knowing she only has a few minutes before the next surge of pain hits her.

They come running, speaking in hushed whispers about fetching the Maester.

“It’s okay, your Grace,” one of them insists in a kind voice, brushing her hair away from her forehead as another rushes to place a damp cloth on it, “lie back, try to relax.”

Sansa bites back the vicious reprimands on her tongue, the stupidity of telling her to relax when it feels like she’s being ripped apart from the inside out. She just lies back and does as she’s told, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

She screws her eyes shut and counts the breaths – _1, 2, 3, 4 –_ as she waits for the Maester. Just when she angrily plans to have him replaced as soon as possible, he comes rushing in, Sam trailing behind.

“Sam?” she gasps his name in surprise, gritting her teeth against another wave of pain.

“You can’t be in here!” one of her maids shoos him, waving her hands madly, “out!”

Sam’s eyes widen at the sight of her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Sansa thinks she’d find it amusing, were the situation different - _if she wasn’t about to push a human being into the world._

“A – a raven,” he stutters, “from Kings Landing.”

Pain rips through her, a hot ball of agony seeming to erupt from the small of her back, but it’s nothing compared to the panic brought on by his words.

“What?” she gasps out, grabbing a handmaiden’s hand as the Maester settles himself between her legs, “what does it say?”

“Your Grace, perhaps now isn’t the time-” the Maester starts, the words dying in his throat at the deadly look she throws him. She won’t be protected from this, _can’t_ be protected from this. The timing isn’t ideal, but she can’t bring Jon’s child into the world, knowing there’s a letter waiting for her, but not knowing what it says. Not knowing if he’s dead or alive.

“Sam,” she practically sobs, white hot fear licking at her insides, “ _please_. Is he okay?”

“I can read it to you-”

“Just tell me,” she bites out, rapidly losing patience.

Sam stares at her for a moment – one solitary moment where _everything_ hangs in the balance. A thick cloud of air chokes her, her worst fears searing behind her eyes, before his face breaks out into a blinding smile. 

“He’s won,” he breathes, “Cersei’s dead.”

She chokes on a gasp that’s more like a sob, her grip around the young girl’s hand tightening. She closes her eyes, feeling everything all at once. It’s almost too much, and she has to remind herself to breathe.

 _He’s_ breathing, so she can breathe. She can focus on bringing their child into the world.

She closes her eyes and grits her teeth against the pain.

A gruelling twelve hours and countless pushes later, Robb Stark opens his eyes on the world.

He doesn’t look like her brother, the one who first held that name. It’s strange, how that grieves and relieves her at the same time. He’s no Targaryen either, not that she would love him any less.

He’s half Stark, half Tully, a little wolf. He looks like Catelyn, all dark curls and striking blue eyes, and she can’t put him down. 

She can’t stop looking at him.

His sister joins them in the chamber a few hours later, when Sansa’s body is exhausted, but thrumming with warmth and happiness. Catelyn climbs onto the bed, staring curiously at the little bundle in her mother’s arms.

She doesn’t say anything. She just lays her head on the pillow next to Sansa, curling into her body. Sansa smiles weakly, her left arm cradling Robb as the other wraps around her first born. As she anchors Catelyn to her side, her eyes begin to droop, her fingers loosening around the scrunched letter in her hand.

As they all close their eyes and feel sleep begin to overcome them, the letter drops from Sansa’s fingers. It flutters to the sheets, a flickering candle illuminating the last three lines.

_It’s over. I love you. I’m coming home._


	28. Chapter 28

Sansa barely knew her husband, the day she married him in the Godswood.

It sounds ridiculous. After-all, she had _known_ him since the day she opened her eyes on the world – but not in the ways that mattered.

She knew his name and that he had loved Robb best and that he was the one who gave Arya that sword. She knew his mens’ betrayal had cut into him deeper than any wound, and she knew he hated that Rhaegar was his real father, and _mostly_ , she knew that he would never hurt her.

Over the years, she learned more about him. She learned how adept he was at ruling, how the Northerners trusted him and respected him. She learned what a fierce warrior he was, what he looked like when he was fighting and shaking and covered in blood. She learned his smile, so rarely given, every expression that flashed over his face when he was angry and frustrated and aroused – often at the same time.

While it was true she grew to know him, in and out, in a way no-one else did, there was also so much she _didn’t_ know — so much that remained a mystery to her. What he was thinking about when he wore that faraway stare. What was going through his mind when he married her, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his jaw clenched tight. Whether he wanted to marry her at all.

After a while, knowing him became less and less relevant, because she began to _feel_ him. Whether he sat beside her in the Great Hall or was lost to her in battle worlds away, he was always, _always_ with her. Always in her mind. Not a choice; a necessity.

Now, theirs is a life so entwined, she can’t tell where he ends and she begins.

This is why she doesn’t have to open her eyes to know he’s there.

With her face buried in her pillow, snuggled under the furs, she hears his steady footsteps as he enters, closing the door with a click behind him. An inexplicable heat erupts in her chest, spreading into an ache that sparks through her limbs like wildfire.

_Gods, she’s missed him._

“Robb,” his low Northern brogue rumbles the name as he comes to stand next to the cot by her bed, his voice covering her like a warm blanket.

Sansa shifts slowly, trying to keep quiet, as she turns to peek at him. His back is to her, his furs still pulled warm around his shoulders, as he leans over the crib and looks at his son for the first time.

“I’m your Papa,” he murmurs, sounding like he can’t quite believe it himself, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, that your mother had to welcome you into the world on her own. She’s strong, as you will be. I promise I’ll try my best to never leave either of you, or your sister, ever again.”

“I hope you’ll be just like him,” he continues in a whisper that makes Sansa’s eyes and throat burn. His hands twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for him, wants to pick him up, but he doesn’t want to wake him, “your uncle was a great man. He was kind and smart and _good._ There was no-one better. No man in all Seven Kingdoms, dead or alive, who could match him.”

Sansa decides to break the silence then, full of warmth and love and admiration for the man in-front of her.

“I can think of one.”

He turns at the sound of her voice, a smile curling the corners of his lips. It’s so untroubled, so light and calm and _happy,_ it takes her breath away. She’s only seen him look at her like that a handful of times in their lives, and it’s almost always to do with their child—their _children._

He’s by the bed in two strides and she lifts her body out of the furs to meet him, wincing past the still-present soreness to rest on her knees and circle her arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” he mutters into her neck, burying his face in her hair before he plants a soft kiss on the exposed skin where her neck meets her shoulder.

“For?”

“For my _son_ ,” he murmurs, the word heavy with significance, “for Catelyn. For you. For everything.”

The tone of his voice, reverential and awe-inspired, tugs at her heart and she pulls him closer. She pushes the furs off his shoulders, leaving him in his leathers, and captures his mouth in a long-overdue kiss.

He releases a little grunt, surprised by her forcefulness. But it’s been months since she’s seen him, and longer still since she's felt him inside her. She _wants_ him. Her body comes to life with an intense stir, a spark that snaps at her heels.

She wants him so badly, she’s practically trembling with it.

Heat blossoms between her thighs as they kiss languidly, sloppily, happily. Visions sear behind her eyes; his teeth tugging at her bottom lip, his hot tongue lapping at her cunt, his cock thrusting between her wet thighs. She breaks away with a little moan, resting her forehead against his, as she remembers her body still hasn’t quite healed, and little Robb sleeps beside them.

She drops her head down, burying her face in the hollow of his throat. She feels the corded muscles flexing beneath her touch; brushes her mouth against the hot skin and imagines the rush of blood beneath. Her lips fall open to facilitate a sigh and she tastes the tang of sweat and smoke and mud under her tongue. 

Jon is _dirty._ His clothes are filthy from his ride, his boots leaving thick streaks of mud she’ll chastise him for later, and his unruly curls have escaped from the leather band tying them back.

Still panting from the heat of his kiss, she lets out a little laugh.

“You’re _filthy,_ ” she scrunches her nose, her hand on his chest pushing him back slightly.

He sends her a devastating, lopsided grin, looking like he couldn’t care less.

“I wanted to see you,” he shrugs, his dusty hands still holding her waist, “I wanted to see him.”

His voice is softer then as his eyes flit to his newborn son like he couldn’t possibly have waited. Resting and waiting until the morning, getting some sleep, drawing a bath… all luxuries he could do without for now.

He could never do without _this._

He kisses her again, tongue licking inside the hot cavern of her mouth. He swallows her little moan, gently grasping her wrists, trailing them up his stomach, his chest, until her arms can loop around his neck again.

He lets go, his own hands anchoring themselves on her hips.

“Jon,” she breathes hot against his mouth when he finally lets her break away, “you’ve had a long journey,” _both in the flesh and the spirit,_ she thinks, “ _Rest._ We will still be here when you get back.”

He looks at her for a moment, pupils blown to black, before he rests his forehead against hers.

“Love you,” he mutters quietly, eyes drifting shut.

Sansa’s chest aches, still quite unused to the admission.

“I love you,” she finally replies, giving him one more kiss before he reluctantly leaves her chambers for the comfort of a bath.

She’s the one who told him to leave — but she aches for him when he’s gone.

Three days and countless reunions later – Jon and Catelyn, Jon and Sam, Sansa and Arya, Arya and Catelyn – they find themselves discussing the uncertain future stretching out before them.

“It has to be you,” Sam says to Jon, voice heavy with meaning, “it’s always been you. Aegon Targaryen, Sixth of His Name, Protector of the Realm, _all of it_.” 

Sansa’s careful eyes flit to her husband by her side, gauging his reaction. 

Unsurprisingly, his jaw is clenched and she sees his hands twitch where they lay on the table. 

“I’m not a Targaryen.” 

“With respect, your Grace,” Ser Davos speaks then, cautious but strong, “you are. You may not identify as such, but the blood of Old Valyria runs through your veins. Cersei is gone, as is the Kingslayer. Tyrion would side with you. You have the strongest claim, the _only_ claim. You’re the true King.” 

It had brought Sansa little comfort, the revelation that Jaime had died trying to protect the woman he loved, falling under Jon’s sword while Arya dealt with Cersei. Jaime wasn’t an evil man, she’s sure, and Brienne had loved him. The fact that the woman hasn’t come out of her rooms since she discovered his fate is testament enough to that.

Part of Sansa wonders whether Jon wanted to be the one to do it. Cersei had orchestrated so much pain over the years, the Lannisters stealing so many Starks, including his own daughter. But when all is said and done, Jon cares little for glory or credit, and he doesn’t enjoy taking lives. No matter who they might be, no matter how they deserve it. It had meant more to Arya. Cersei was always top of her list and she _hungered_ for it. Sansa was unsurprised to learn it was she who delivered the final blow. 

Her sister speaks now, her voice quiet but loaded with significance. 

“There’s no-one left, Jon,” she whispers and the truth to it, the reminder of everyone they’ve lost, tugs at Sansa’s chest, “yes, we removed Cersei from the throne, but the dragons did a lot of damage. We can’t leave Kings Landing like that, can’t leave those people to rebuild and fend for themselves. They have to know someone is out there who _cares_ about them. Who cares about what’s good and right. You could be that. You _both_ could. A _good_ King and a _just_ Queen, the likes of which this shit realm has never seen.” 

Arya's words stir something passionate and warm in the pit of Sansa’s stomach and she looks to Jon, softly covering her hand with his on the table. 

His stormy eyes flitter to their entwined fingers, looking surprised and conflicted and sad and a hundred other emotions she can’t even begin to decipher. 

Finally, he lifts his gaze and looks at her like she’s the only person in the room. 

“This is our home,” he murmurs, a tortured expression flickering over his dark features. 

She nods, her eyes and throat burning. 

“ _You_ are my home,” she corrects him, “you and Catelyn and Robb. Just as we are yours. We’ll always hold a place for the North, but it would be safe in Bran’s hands. There’s so much suffering, Jon. From the Wall to Dorne. We have to help them.” 

Jon stares at her for a beat before exhaling on an incredulous breath. 

“You can’t want to go back there,” he says darkly – and it’s not a question, “after _everything_ they did to you, to us, to the Starks. That throne is built on greed and disease and death. I don’t care who my father is, I don’t want it. I never have.” 

Sansa smiles, but there’s little joy in it. 

“Perhaps the best ruler might be someone who _doesn’t_ want to rule. Destiny is something you can’t escape, my love, no matter how hard you try. You didn’t want to become King in the North, but the crown was given to you anyway. You were born to rule the Seven Kingdoms and it’s not about what I want, or what you want. It’s about what’s right.” 

Jon stares at her again, looking stunned and appreciative and completely, _unconditionally_ in love. He doesn’t know that she’s _thought_ about this. For weeks and weeks while he was gone, she played out every scenario in her head, and when she got past the sickening ones that ended in his death, she considered what would happen if he lived. 

Someone would need to replace Cersei – someone good and honourable and right. She loves the North, but she loves _people_ too. She’s a good woman, one who wants to make a difference, and the people of Highgarden, of Dorne, of the Riverlands… they’re all people who will need to look to a crown that cares about them. 

“I don’t know if I can, Sansa,” Jon whispers eventually, sounding shattered and broken and more vulnerable than she’s ever heard him. 

She smiles again, this time watery and _real_. 

“I will help you.” 

He closes his eyes, tortured and in pain, before he lifts her hand to his lips.

He places a scorching kiss on her palm, one to begin the rest of their lives. 


	29. Chapter 29

"I don't know if I can do this."

Jon's voice, gruff and low and painfully Northern, echoes around the throne room. It's a tone that doesn't fit, doesn't belong in the South, and his stormy eyes flit over where a Stark has never sat.

The Iron Throne is uglier than Sansa remembers, all sharp steel and jagged edges, and briefly she wonders how they got here. How they're standing, still and uneasy, before a throne they never wanted. So many did. So many _died_ for it - and yet here they are. Robb fusses in her arms, tiny hands reaching out to grip the ends of her hair, as Catelyn clings to Jon's leg.

 _What a picture they must make_ , she thinks, wolves and dragons come to make Kings Landing their home. She thinks Cersei must be turning in her grave. 

_That_ thought is enough to bring a smile to her face at least.

The hand that's not cradling her babe reaches for Jon, entwining their fingers. He turns to glance at her, expression impassive and calm.

"You can," she insists softly, "you are a great King... and the rest of Westeros will love you, as the North already do."

A Targaryen father and a Stark mother, he can bind the Kingdoms in a way no-one has before. And she'll be here, by his side, every step of the way.

He smiles down at her, gentle and soft and so very different to before. She loves the way he looks at her now, loves the life they've carved out together. He lifts their entwined fingers and places a kiss on the back of her hand.

Her eyes flit from the throne, to him, to their children, and her chest feels too tight.

Whether they're in Kings Landing or Winterfell, _this_ is home.

It's not a traditional coronation, the day they take the title of King and Queen.

With lords and ladies from all Seven Kingdoms gathered, Sansa's struck by the memory of the negotiation at the Dragon Pit, all those months ago. Some people haven't made it - Daenerys and Cersei, Littlefinger and Ser Jaime - and some are still here, or back here, though they don't want to be. Either way, representatives from all the great houses are here to choose them officially, something Jon insisted upon.

He won't sit on the throne yet. Instead, he stands before it, hands clasped behind his back, while Sansa sits beside him. Robb sleeps in her lap, while Arya stands on the other side of Jon, hands clasped on Catelyn's shoulders in-front of her.

"As you all know, my family and I have been brought here because I lay the last claim to the Iron Throne," Jon's voice is strong, commanding and without fear, and Sansa's proud of him, "it is not something I have coveted... nor something my wife and I particularly want... but if it is what _you_ want, representatives of the good people of Westeros, then we will accept. We will try our bests to be good rulers - fair and just - the likes of which haven't sat on this throne in decades."

Ser Davos stands first, looking simple and humble against the splendour of the throne room.

"My house is of little importance," he begins, "I represent very few and I don't know much. But I do know this. There is no-one better to lead us into the future. Kings can be cruel and stupid, as we all know. Jon is neither. He brought wildlings south of the Wall, united people who'd hated each other for centuries. He crossed the seas and defeated the dead. He defeated death himself. He doesn't care about power, he doesn't care about birthright, yet he's continued the powerful bloodlines of Stark _and_ Targaryen. His son and daughter will rule as justly as he when we are gone. He does what he must, because he knows what is right."

Sansa watches Jon throughout Davos' speech, watches the movement of his throat as he swallows, the tell tale tick of his jaw. He stares straight ahead and his hands don't shake, but Sansa can see he's moved, touched by his friend's faith. She is too, and she sends Davos a grateful smile.

"And of the Lady Sansa?" he continues, expression softening, and the room is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop, "aye, she's beautiful, but she's far more than that. She's kind and brave, the strongest woman I've ever known. She's intelligent, can hold her own as a ruler in her own right. She can temper Jon's impulses, provide him with more meaningful council than any of us. They will bring the Seven Kingdoms into a new era of prosperity, two leaders for the price of one."

Eventually, Tyrion clears his throat, and all eyes snap to his.

"Well, I suppose there are few who can argue with such a stunning testimony," he takes a step forward, standing before a curious Jon, "I've always liked you, Jon. Always thought you were a good man. And Sansa… you are a remarkable woman. I have no interest in the throne, even it had an interest in me. I would be honoured to give you my support, if it means anything now.”

Jon slowly glances to Sansa, as though to say she can decide what happens to her former husband.

“You’re a good man too, Tyrion,” she murmurs eventually, “you were never anything but kind to me. We welcome your support.”

Tyrion smiles a weak smile, one that belongs to a man who has seen too much.

“Well then,” his sharp eyes flit from Jon to Sansa, addressing them both, “I ask you this… if we choose you, will you wear the crown? Will you lead the Seven Kingdoms to the best of your abilities, from this day until your last day?”

Jon gives a solemn nod, his voice clear as a bell as he promises, “aye, we will.”

“There is one exception…” Sansa speaks out, causing the audience to pause their murmurings in curiosity, “tens of thousands of Northmen fell in the Great War. Those who survived have seen too much and fought too hard to ever kneel again. Even to us. Under Brandon Stark, the North will remain a free and independent Kingdom, as it was for thousands of years.”

“And how will you style yourself?” Yara Greyjoy asks Jon then, brow quirked in mild interest, “Snow? Stark? Targaryen?”

“Jon Stark,” he replies easily and the name warms Sansa’s chest.

He turns his head and looks at her like she’s the only person in the room.

_I’m not a Stark._

“I’ve always been a Stark,” he says quietly; the words are for her.

_You are to me._

“To Jon of House Stark,” Gendry Baratheon cheers, his eyes on Arya, “I say aye.”

“Aye,” another calls, and then another, until the great hall is filled with ovations.

“All hail King Jon and Queen Sansa, of the Houses Stark and Targaryen,” the voices ring out, “first of his name, rightful King of the Andals and the First Men. Lord of the Six Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. The White Wolf, the Reborn, the Prince who was Promised.”

Finally, Jon sits – and Sansa can’t help but feel they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be.

_We’ll make new memories,_ Sansa had insisted when Jon breached the subject of returning to the Red Keep.

Entering the King’s chambers, she tries to shake off the ghosts that reside here. If she squints, she thinks she can see sweet Tommen by the window, see Joffrey playing with his crossbow in the corner, like a child who plucks at the wings of a fly for fun.

She thinks of lost Queens too; not only of Cersei, who she’ll never shed a tear for, but of her friend Margaery. Walking to the high arched window, she glances outside to watch the sun setting, their dragons flying across the red-streaked sky.

Arya was telling the truth when she said the creatures had done some damage. Vast areas of the city lay in ruins and while she’s sure Jon would have done his best not to burn or hurt innocent people, she mourns for those caught in the crossfire. There’s work to be done, that much is certain, and she’s eager to get started.

 _Tomorrow,_ she thinks, as the chamber door creaks open and Jon enters.

He’s silent as he comes to stand behind her, his arms slowly snaking their way around her middle. She leans back into him, a sigh falling from her lips as she grasps his forearms.

“Robb told me…” she starts, voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper, “that father once said being a ruler was very much like being a parent. Except you have thousands of children… and you worry for them all.”

“You worry already,” Jon murmurs and it’s not a question.

“Yes,” she says, her thumbs rubbing slowly circles on the forearms around her waist, “I want to be a good Queen.”

“You will be,” he insists, placing a soft kiss on the side of her neck, “you’re an amazing mother to the two children we already have. Before that, you were a mother to the North. You’re a natural, my love.”

She smiles, softly closing her eyes.

“Who would have thought we’d be here, all those years ago?” she ponders out-loud, thinking of harsher times, times when they were strangers to each other, when they hurt each other, cut into each other’s skin with harsh and icy words.

“I was a fool,” he mutters into her hair, “I wish we hadn’t wasted so much time.”

“We’re here now.”

“Aye,” he agrees, “speaking of our children… where are they?”

The corner of Sansa’s mouth tips into a smirk as she slowly turns in his arms, rubbing his chest.

“Arya and Gendry have them for the night. They’re staying for a week or so before returning to Storm’s End. I said it’d be good practice for them. It’s lucky Needle was nowhere around, Queen or not.”

Jon matches her smile, quirking a curious brow.

“And why are they not with us?”

Sansa quirks a brow of her own, her eyes darkening. She makes her answer clear with a kiss, leaning forward and capturing his mouth with hers. He yields beneath her, letting her set the pace as his arms secure themselves around her waist.

She breathes through her nose, her own hands tugging at his shirt. She feels it slightly damp under her palm, the silk clinging to his chest. Outside, thick, moist air covers the city like a blanket. It’s too hot for him, she realises, and she remembers he hasn’t spent time in the south the way she has – despite being born here.

“We’ll visit,” she mumbles against his mouth, tugging slightly at his bottom lip, “we’ll go North… see Bran and Tormund and Sam and baby Jon.”

His chest rumbles as he speaks, walking backwards towards the bed and taking her with him.

“Please don’t talk about Bran or Tormund right now,” he mutters between kisses, “or Sam, or babes…. unless you’re talking about making the next one.”

Sansa breaks from his lips in surprise, exhaling on a shaky breath as he takes the opportunity to drag his mouth down her neck.

“The next one?”

He pulls the straps of her shift down her shoulders, letting it pool at her waist before dragging it down, moving down her body and leaving kisses all the while. He settles on his knees before her, warm hands curling around the backs of her thighs.

“Aye,” he rasps against the inside of her thigh, “I love seeing you grow round with my babe. I want to give you more sons, more daughters. I want to fill the Red Keep with them, little wolves and dragons to drive the lions away.”

Sansa threads her fingers through his hair, releasing his curls from the leather band tying them back. He lets out a little grunt at the feel of her nails on his scalp, his beard scratching her inner thigh. Any witty reply she might have had dies on her tongue at the feel of his mouth on her.

She bucks against him, a sharp gasp escaping her as his hot tongue slides up and down her slit. Her grip on his hair tightens as he laps at her, his hands spreading her thighs wider for him.

“I’m not sure the other Kings of Westeros did this for their Queens,” she gasps, arching her back as his tongue hits the perfect spot. He opens his mouth wider so as to not miss a drop as one finger slides inside her.

His reply is hot and gruff and slightly muffled, but she hears him nonetheless.

“I don’t intend to be like the other Kings of Westeros,” he says, and scrapes his teeth against her clit. She exhales on a shaky laugh, one that quickly turns into a heated moan as he slips another finger inside her.

She whimpers his name, head falling back and hips grinding as she chases her release. Once he feels her thighs begin to shake around his head, he moves both hands to her hips, helping her to slide back and forth, riding his face.

She flies off the edge with a choked moan, trembling in the afterglow. As the white spots searing behind her vision begin to fade, she registers him wiping his mouth on the inside of her thigh. When he stands, his beard is still wet with her, and she kisses him fiercely, tasting herself on his tongue.

She helps him undress, tugging at his clothes with a sense of urgency as they fall back onto the bed. He covers her with his body, all strong and smooth, and there’s no more preamble, no build up. She cradles him between her thighs, kissing him once more as he slides inside her.

He sets a steady pace, not angry or sad or detached like before. There’s no need for urgency, to try and chase away the demons from their past, all those that lie between them. They’re together now, in every sense of the word, and she touches her forehead to his.

“I love you,” she whispers, “always.”

He kisses her, fucking her in shallow thrusts as his thumb strokes her cheekbone.

“As I love you,” he murmurs, “my Queen.”

Years later, long after they’re buried and gone, people still sing songs about the King and Queen of Winter.

They were rulers worth waiting for, they say. Beloved by all, they led their Kingdoms with all the grace and wisdom that rarely came before them. They filled the Red Keep with children, four more after Catelyn and Robb; twins Arya and Lyanna, another girl, Alys and another boy, Rickard. They oversaw a prosperous North and a harmonious South, blending past and present, heralding a new age of peace.

The people sang of their children; of Catelyn who became a fierce dragonrider, of Robb who was as talented a military commander as the one who first held his name, of Arya and Lyanna who were as wild as their namesakes, a touch of the wolfsblood in them, of little Alys who was as quiet and brooding as her father, of auburn-haired Rickard, who was far more like his mother.

The songs differ, but the message is always the same.

Two people who never expected to find each other, who married with nothing to give, and who ended up with everything in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left, I can't believe it! :'( It's late and I just want to get this out, so I'll gush my thank you to everyone at the end of the next chapter!


	30. Epilogue

The harsh winds whip at Robb Stark’s face as he walks down the steps into the courtyard at Winterfell.

Squinting against the snow, he lifts his eyes to the sky.

“She’s late,” a voice points out, somewhat obviously, from his side. The voice is light hearted, almost teasing, and Robb turns to look at the man named after his father.

“Thank you,” he rolls his eyes, “I hadn’t noticed.”

Jon Tarly huffs a laugh, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s more playful than his namesake, a man whose stories he grew up on, a man he's always idolised from afar, and everyone says it’s Robb who inherited his father's temperament.

He's suddenly struck by how much he misses him, him and his mother. It’s been a year since they lost them, plunging the Seven Kingdoms into mourning, and the wound still feels fresh. He tries to shake the sorrow off and continues searching the sky for his sister.

Suddenly, he catches a flap of wings break through the clouds. He shields his eyes with his hand and watches Jon do the same as the dragon approaches, spraying up showers of snow as it lands in the courtyard with a mighty flourish.

Robb shivers against the cold, pulling his furs tighter around his shoulders. He smiles at the sight of his eldest sister climbing down from the back of the beast and his expression wavers in surprise when another dragon breaks through the sky and lands next to them.

“They insisted on coming,” Catelyn shrugs, referencing the twins currently jumping down from the larger dragon.

Robb rolls his eyes affectionately, remembering how Lyanna and Arya used to argue when they were children. It seems not much has changed as he watches them bicker, both women as headstrong and fierce as the ones they were named after.

“Your Grace,” Catelyn dips into a dramatic bow, a twinkle in her eye.

Robb smirks, arching a brow.

“Your Grace,” he repeats the greeting, just as sarcastic, before his sister rolls her eyes and grabs him in a fierce embrace.

“I’ve missed you, baby brother,” she murmurs into his neck, arms tight around him. Robb’s chest aches at the words, at the realisation of just how much he’s missed her too – missed all of them.

Mother and father had been devastated when Uncle Bran died, succumbing to a fever that swept through much of the North. They’d begged him to come South where it was warm and safe and they could look after him, but he’d insisted his place was here _._

He was unlikely to survive the journey, he’d said, and even if he wanted to go, there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

Now Robb is the Stark in Winterfell, sent North to be King as his namesake once was.

 _“Be safe,”_ Sansa had whispered, a sob welling in her throat as she pulled him in close, _“I love you so much.”_

 _“What if I can’t do it?”_ he’d muttered with his nose buried in her hair, his eyes falling shut.

 _“You can,”_ his father spoke then _,_ clasping a hand on his shoulder _, “you will lead the North with all the grace and wisdom of your uncle before you. He was far better at it than I am, and you will be too, my son.”_

Robb Stark and Jon Snow left intimidating legacies to follow, but he’s settled into his role and his people love him.

They love his sister too, Queen of the Six Kingdoms. Jon passed the Act of Succession as he promised he would, and now here she stands, Queen Catelyn Stark, the White Wolf, the Dragonrider.

Catelyn breaks away and moves to Jon Tarly next, giving him a playful slap on the chest and pulling him in for a hug when he attempts to bend the knee.

The twins are so deep in their bickering, they attempt to brush straight past Robb before he grabs them, slinging an arm over each of their shoulders.

“No hello for your big brother?” he chides in mock outrage as they walk, none of them needing to ask where to go.

They all know why they’re here, and they head for the crypts.

Standing in-front of the statues of their mother and father, Robb’s surprised Lyanna’s the first to cry.

Stories of the first Lyanna Stark have become legend, especially after the truth was revealed.

_The girl that sparked a rebellion, the wolf that fell in love with a dragon and brought the Seven Kingdoms to its knees._

They said the wolfsblood had made her wild, fierce and uncontrollable, and it had trickled down into her granddaughter. More than once, Robb had watched his father despair at how hard it was to keep little Lyanna under control.

 _We should have named her something else,_ he’d grumble to Sansa who would simply laugh, _she has too much of my mother in her._

Arya was the same, as stubborn and wilful as her namesake. Together, Robb’s sure they were the main cause of his mother and father’s grey hairs.

In the flickering candlelight, he watches the tears fill in both their eyes, illuminating flecks of violet. They’re the only two Stark children to inherit the Targaryen eyes, something that Sansa never cared about, something that Jon came to terms with. 

_“My little dragons,”_ he would call them, smiling gently as he held them both in his arms, and Robb was almost jealous.

Catelyn stands between the twins, gently taking each of their hands in hers, while Robb plants Longclaw in the stone ground and bends to his knee before his parents.

They lived out their days in Kings Landing, but they never forgot about their home. There was never any question that they would be buried here.

It’s silent for a moment as they pay their respects.

Robb screws his eyes shut, his forehead resting against the wolf-shaped pommel of his father's sword as he remembers summer nights when Jon would teach him how to use it, cotton shirts sticking to their chests and breathless with laughter.

The twins grip their sister’s hands tighter, eyes flitting over their mother’s stone face. They remember her patience, the calm air she always carried with her. They wanted to be just like her and they suddenly miss her with such a force, it makes their bodies ache. 

Catelyn remains composed, her face almost expressionless, but she remembers the most. She’d had them for the longest, almost six years when it was just the three of them. She’d known them when there was a distance between them, when they weren’t the desperately in love King and Queen history would write them to be. She knew her father when he didn’t want to be a Targaryen, her mother when she had no interest in wanting him at all.

She closes her eyes and thinks about holding back the tears, but then… this is _them –_ it’s Robb and Lyanna and Arya – and she’s not Queen of the Six Kingdoms here. She’s surrounded by the ghosts of Winterfell and this is _family._ It's _home._

She lets the first tear fall, then the next, then she’s gripping her sisters’ hands tighter.

She hasn’t noticed Robb’s standing again until he speaks.

“Was it safe to leave Kings Landing,” he starts, “all of you?”

“Alys and Rickard are there,” she points out, “they’ll be fine to rule in my absence for a few moons. They didn’t want to come anyway… I don’t think they’re ready yet.”

Her smile is sad then as she looks at her brother, something unspoken passing between them. They had all loved their parents, fiercely and without question, but the two youngest Starks had taken their deaths particularly hard.

Robb remembers the broken way Alys had sobbed as she sat at father’s bedside, gripping his hand so tight he worried she’d break it.

 _“It’s alright, Alys,”_ Jon had murmured, a soft smile curling the corners of his lips, “ _I’m ready. I’ll be with your mother.”_

They’d died mere months apart. Sansa had fallen ill quickly, surprising all of them, and she was gone before they could really understand what was happening. Jon’s despair had resonated throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and though his advisors urged him to marry again, he never could.

Whatever the Maester had named cause of death, Robb knew better.

It was a broken heart.

He didn’t know how to be in the world without Sansa.

Rickard had been all for his mother since the day he was born, completely tethered to her side. He had her temperament, graceful and serene, and he’d spend hours with her, watching her sew or tending the gardens with her or listening to her read.

“Besides, it’s always safe to leave Kings Landing. Our enemies are few and far between,” Arya speaks now, gesturing to the statues in-front of them, “ _they_ saw to that.”

Robb looks at his parents again, at his mother’s outstretched hand, emblematic of her kindness, her desire to help people. It was a desire that became renowned throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and in her other hand she holds a tiny stone wolf to her chest.

His father’s hands are cupped over the pommel of his sword in-front of him, a stance similar to Ned Stark’s at the opposite end of the crypt. Ghost lays at his feet, a loyal companion in death as he was in life, and the dragon sigil is carved into his stone chest.

It’s a perfect blend of Targaryen and Stark, symbolic of the unity and peace they brought to their people, and wherever they are, Robb hopes they're proud of them. 

“Come,” Catelyn murmurs, “I wish to pay my respects to my namesake.”

“Aye,” he agrees in a low voice, his eyes already searching for the statue of Robb Stark in the dark, commissioned by his mother though she could never bring her brother’s bones home. He finds the fallen King, Greywind at his feet, and moves over to him.

Catelyn does the same. Her grandmother’s bones had turned to dust in a cold river down south, but Sansa had ensured the stone Catelyn Stark would forever rest next to her husband.

Lyanna is next, moving to a statue of a woman none are alive to remember, and she bows her head in-front of it.

Only Arya can’t find her namesake, her aunt living out her old age with Lord Gendry in Storm’s End. _You’ll carry out my wild days for me,_ she’d laughed the last time she’d seen her, and Arya pays her respects to Uncle Bran instead.

 _House Stark is dead,_ people once said, yet here they are – powerful and alive and _free._

_The pack survives,_ Catelyn thinks with a melancholy smile as they leave the crypts - and she softly blows out the candle behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have it! I can't believe it's over. Honestly, thank you so so so much for your amazing comments and all the love you've given me for this story. It's seriously been my baby for the past few months. There have been super highs and super lows, moments when I thought I'd never finish it, but I'm so glad you stuck with me through the angst to the other side! I've found it so interesting that some of you have been on Sansa's side, some on Jon's, some on both or neither. Thank you again and here's to many more stories, hopefully! :)


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